dsrdump(1)
💅 dsrdump(1) — the OFFIS DCMTK glow-up 🫶
ok so bestie, welcome to dsrdump from the OFFIS DCMTK manual (yes that's the manual name, i'm folding it in up top like a lil name tag 🎀). this is the page where we dump DICOM SR files and it's honestly kind of iconic. let's go ✨
🌸 NAME 🌸
dsrdump — dump DICOM SR file and data set. like, literally just pour the contents out. no cap 💅
⭐ SYNOPSIS ⭐
dsrdump [options] dsrfile-in...🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋
okay so the dsrdump utility dumps the contents of a DICOM Structured Reporting (SR) document (file format or raw data set) to stdout in textual form, and it eats. the output of the document content follows the format proposed in David Clunie's book "DICOM Structured Reporting" (PixelMed Publishing, 2000). iykyk 📖✨
now here's the tea ☕ — if dsrdump reads a raw data set (DICOM data without a file format meta-header), it will attempt to guess the transfer syntax by examining the first few bytes of the file. and ngl, it is not always possible to correctly guess the transfer syntax 😭 so it is better to convert a data set to a file format whenever possible (using the dcmconv utility). you can also use the -f and -t[ieb] options to force dsrdump to read a dataset with a particular transfer syntax. forcing it is very main character energy 👑
🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀
dsrfile-in— DICOM SR input filename to be dumped. and yes bestie,"-"means stdin 💖
✨ OPTIONS ✨
💜 general options
-h,--help— print this help text and exit. the classic.--version— print version information and exit. (also tells you which char encoding library you got, more on that later 👀)--arguments— print expanded command line arguments-q,--quiet— quiet mode, print no warnings and errors 🤫-v,--verbose— verbose mode, print processing details 🗣️-d,--debug— debug mode, print debug information 🐛-ll,--log-level[l]evel: string constant— (fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace) use level l for the logger-lc,--log-config[f]ilename: string— use config file f for the logger
🌈 input options
input file format:
+f,--read-file— read file format or data set (default)+fo,--read-file-only— read file format only-f,--read-dataset— read data set without file meta information
input transfer syntax:
-t=,--read-xfer-auto— use TS recognition (default)-td,--read-xfer-detect— ignore TS specified in the file meta header-te,--read-xfer-little— read with explicit VR little endian TS-tb,--read-xfer-big— read with explicit VR big endian TS-ti,--read-xfer-implicit— read with implicit VR little endian TS
🧚 processing options
additional information:
-Ip,--processing-details— show currently processed content item 👀
error handling:
-Er,--unknown-relationship— accept unknown/missing relationship type-Ev,--invalid-item-value— accept invalid content item value (e.g. violation of VR or VM definition)-Ec,--ignore-constraints— ignore relationship content constraints-Ee,--ignore-item-errors— do not abort on content item errors, just warn (e.g. missing value type specific attributes)-Ei,--skip-invalid-items— skip invalid content items (including sub-tree)-Dv,--disable-vr-checker— disable check for VR-conformant string values
specific character set:
+U8,--convert-to-utf8— convert all element values that are affected by Specific Character Set(0008,0005)to UTF-8
# requires support from an underlying character encoding library
# (see output of --version on which one is available)fr fr, go check --version first before you come for me 💀
🍓 output options
general printing:
+Pf,--print-filename— print header with filename for each document-Ph,--no-document-header— do not print general document information+Pn,--number-nested-items— print position string in front of each line-Pn,--indent-nested-items— indent nested items by spaces (default)
printing values:
+Pl,--print-long-values— print long item values completely-Pl,--shorten-long-values— print long item values shortened (default)+Pu,--print-instance-uid— print SOP instance UID of referenced objects-Ps,--print-sopclass-short— print short SOP class name of referenced image objects, e.g."CT image"(default)+Ps,--print-sopclass-long— print long SOP class name of referenced objects+Psu,--print-sopclass-uid— print SOP class UID of referenced objects+Pc,--print-all-codes— print all codes (including concept name codes)+Pi,--print-invalid-codes— print invalid codes (for debugging purposes)-Pi,--no-invalid-codes— print text"invalid code"instead (default)+Pt,--print-template-id— print template identification information
enhanced encoding mode:
+Pe,--indicate-enhanced— indicate that enhanced mode is used for codes-Pe,--no-enhanced-mode— do not indicate enhanced mode (default)
color:
+C,--print-color— use ANSI escape codes for colored output 🌈 slay-C,--no-color— do not use any ANSI escape codes (default)
🔥 NOTES 🔥
👑 DICOM Conformance
the dsrdump utility supports the following SOP Classes — full list, no skipping, i gotchu 🫶
SpectaclePrescriptionReportStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.78.6MacularGridThicknessAndVolumeReportStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.79.1BasicTextSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.11EnhancedSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.22ComprehensiveSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.33Comprehensive3DSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.34ProcedureLogStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.40MammographyCADSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.50KeyObjectSelectionDocumentStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.59ChestCADSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.65XRayRadiationDoseSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.67RadiopharmaceuticalRadiationDoseSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.68ColonCADSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.69ImplantationPlanSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.70AcquisitionContextSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.71SimplifiedAdultEchoSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.72PatientRadiationDoseSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.73PlannedImagingAgentAdministrationSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.74PerformedImagingAgentAdministrationSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.75WaveformAnnotationSRStorage—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.77
and also:
RenditionSelectionDocumentRealTimeCommunication—1.2.840.10008.10.4(*)
() this is *not a Storage SOP Class, but used for Real-Time Communication. little asterisk, big lore 💀
💀 LOGGING 💀
so the level of logging output of the various command line tools and underlying libraries can be specified by the user. by default, only errors and warnings are written to the standard error stream. using option --verbose also informational messages like processing details are reported. option --debug can be used to get more details on the internal activity, e.g. for debugging purposes. other logging levels can be selected using option --log-level. in --quiet mode only fatal errors are reported — and in such very severe error events, the application will usually terminate 😭 so like, yeah.
for more details on the different logging levels, see documentation of module "oflog".
in case the logging output should be written to file (optionally with logfile rotation), to syslog (Unix) or the event log (Windows) option --log-config can be used. this configuration file also allows for directing only certain messages to a particular output stream and for filtering certain messages based on the module or application where they are generated. an example configuration file is provided in <etcdir>/logger.cfg. periodt 📁✨
🧚 COMMAND LINE 🧚
all command line tools use the following notation for parameters: square brackets enclose optional values (0-1), three trailing dots indicate that multiple values are allowed (1-n), a combination of both means 0 to n values. bestie that's just the grammar of it 🫶
command line options are distinguished from parameters by a leading '+' or '-' sign, respectively. usually, order and position of command line options are arbitrary (i.e. they can appear anywhere). however, if options are mutually exclusive the rightmost appearance is used. this behavior conforms to the standard evaluation rules of common Unix shells.
in addition, one or more command files can be specified using an '@' sign as a prefix to the filename (e.g. @command.txt). such a command argument is replaced by the content of the corresponding text file (multiple whitespaces are treated as a single separator unless they appear between two quotation marks) prior to any further evaluation. please note that a command file cannot contain another command file ⚠️ no inception, sorry.
this simple but effective approach allows one to summarize common combinations of options/parameters and avoids longish and confusing command lines (an example is provided in file <datadir>/dumppat.txt). lowkey genius tbh 💅
🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸
the dsrdump utility will attempt to load DICOM data dictionaries specified in the DCMDICTPATH environment variable. by default, i.e. if the DCMDICTPATH environment variable is not set, the file <datadir>/dicom.dic will be loaded unless the dictionary is built into the application (default for Windows).
the default behavior should be preferred and the DCMDICTPATH environment variable only used when alternative data dictionaries are required. the DCMDICTPATH environment variable has the same format as the Unix shell PATH variable in that a colon (":") separates entries. on Windows systems, a semicolon (";") is used as a separator. the data dictionary code will attempt to load each file specified in the DCMDICTPATH environment variable. it is an error if no data dictionary can be loaded. 🚨
depending on the command line options specified, the dsrdump utility will attempt to load character set mapping tables. this happens when DCMTK was compiled with the oficonv library (which is the default) and the mapping tables are not built into the library (default when DCMTK uses shared libraries).
the mapping table files are expected in DCMTK's <datadir>. the DCMICONVPATH environment variable can be used to specify a different location. if a different location is specified, those mapping tables also replace any built-in tables. so like, choose wisely 🎀
🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋
dcmconv(1) — go convert your data set, bestie, your future self will thank you 💖
⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐
Copyright (C) 2000-2026 by OFFIS e.V., Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany.
okay that's the whole page, you made it, i'm so proud of you 🥹💜 this was Version 3.7.1, dated Sat Oct 17 2026 09:34:01 — from your OFFIS DCMTK bestie, mwah 💋✨
📦 where this page comes from
- arch rolling: dcmtk 3.7.1-1 · BSD-3-Clause
- 💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms