Using CASC Extract and DBC Extract

Overview

SimC has a couple of useful command line tools for downloading and extracting data from WoW client data. This page covers some basic usage that may be useful if you want to use game client data for your own projects.

casc_extract/casc_extract.py can extract binary DBC files or images/icons.

dbc_extract/dbc_extract.py can extract data from DBCs into more "friendly" formats like JSON or CSV

(These notes were written for 8.x / bfa-dev versions)

casc_extract.py Examples

Download game data from CDN:

python casc_extract.py --cdn -m batch -o [OUTPUT_DIR]

--ptr or --beta can be added. Can also use product like: --product=wowxptr

--locale [LOCALE] will grab data for other locales (en_US is default when not specified)

casc_extract.py will create a directory inside of OUTPUT_DIR using the current WoW version from that environment so you'll end up with something like OUTPUT_DIR/8.0.1.26715

dbc_extract.py Examples

Extract Game Data

Extract JSON files from DBC:

python dbc_extract.py -b [WOW_BUILD] -t json -p [PATH_TO_DBCS] [DBC]

WOW_BUILD is the full WoW version (e.g. 8.0.1.26715)

PATH_TO_DBCS will likely be based on the OUTPUT_DIR you used with casc_extract.py and will usually need to point to the [WOW_VERSION]/DBFilesClient/ subdirectory

--hotfix [PATH_TO_DBCACHEBIN] is used to include hotfix data from a local game installation.

Download images/icons from CDN

You can use casc_extract.py to extract assets from the game data (such as icons). You need a file with the names of assets you want to extract.

You can generate a list of icon paths by looking at the ManifestInterfaceData DBC.

python casc_extract.py --cdn -m batch -o [OUTPUT_DIR] -b files.txt

files.txt is a new-line delimited file of the paths used in the DBC. Partial example:

Interface\ICONS\Ability_Ambush.blp
Interface\ICONS\Ability_BackStab.blp
Interface\ICONS\Ability_BullRush.blp
Interface\ICONS\Ability_CheapShot.blp
...

Full Example

Full example to convert ItemSparse DBC into a JSON file

python casc_extract.py --cdn -m batch -o ./tmp/casc-data

# This would create /tmp/casc-data/8.0.1.26715

python dbc_extract.py -b 8.0.1.26715 -t json -p ./tmp/casc-data/8.0.1.26715/DBFilesClient ItemSparse > ./tmp/ItemSparse.json

To include hotfix data, use the --hotfix flag pointed at your WoW install:

./dbc_extract.py -b 8.0.1.26715 -t csv -p ./tmp/casc-data/8.0.1.26715/DBFilesClient --hotfix /path/to/wow/Cache/ADB/enUS/DBCache.bin ItemSparse > /tmp/ItemSparse.csv

Full Walkthrough for pulling Spell Data

1. python casc_extract.py -m batch --cdn -o <path> (--product, --beta, or --ptr if needed)
2. Place DBCache.bin from the wow folder into the proper dbc_extract3\cache\live\ or dbc_extract3\cache\ptr\
3. Run the dbc_extract3 generate command, i.e.: ./generate.bat [ptr] <full build number> ../casc_extract/<casc_extract temp path> [--hotfix] [path to hotfix DBCache.bin]
4. If running for PTR, make sure to change #define SC_USE_PTR 0 to #define SC_USE_PTR 1 in config.hpp. Do not upload this change.
5. Rebuild SimulationCraft
6. Run the spell data dump script in that folder for that output