xml2dsr(1)
💜 xml2dsr(1) — OFFIS DCMTK 💜
okay so bestie, welcome to the manual page for xml2dsr, part of OFFIS DCMTK, section 1 of the man pages. it's giving "converter core" and honestly she ate. let's get into it 🫶
✨ NAME ✨
xml2dsr — Convert XML document to DICOM SR file 🦋
✨ SYNOPSIS ✨
xml2dsr [options] xmlfile-in dsrfile-out✨ DESCRIPTION ✨
okay so xml2dsr takes the contents of an XML (Extensible Markup Language) document and converts it to DICOM Structured Reporting (SR) format — either file format or raw data set. literally doing the most and we love her for it 💅
the XML Schema dsr2xml.xsd does not yet follow any standard format. ngl that's just how it is right now. but! the xml2dsr application might be enhanced in this aspect in the future (e. g. by supporting HL7/CDA - Clinical Document Architecture). so like, watch this space ✨
an appropriate XML file can be created using the dsr2xml tool — and option +Xn is recommended to add XML namespace declaration to the root element. iykyk 🎀
✨ PARAMETERS ✨
xmlfile-in— XML input filename to be converted (-for stdin) 🍓dsrfile-out— DICOM SR output filename (-for stdout) 🍓
✨ OPTIONS ✨
🎀 general options
-h,--help— print this help text and exit--version— print version information and exit--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
encoding:
+Ee,--template-envelope— template element encloses content items
🌸 processing options
validation:
+Vs,--validate-schema— validate XML document against Schema (not with--template-envelope)- this one requires libxml to be compiled with XML Schema support, no cap 😭
+Vn,--check-namespace— check XML namespace in document root
unique identifiers:
+Ug,--generate-new-uids— generate new Study/Series/SOP Instance UID-Uo,--dont-overwrite-uids— do not overwrite existing UIDs (default)+Uo,--overwrite-uids— overwrite existing UIDs
👑 output options
output file format:
+F,--write-file— write file format (default)-F,--write-dataset— write data set without file meta information
output transfer syntax:
+t=,--write-xfer-same— write with same TS as input (default)+te,--write-xfer-little— write with explicit VR little endian TS+tb,--write-xfer-big— write with explicit VR big endian TS+ti,--write-xfer-implicit— write with implicit VR little endian TS+td,--write-xfer-deflated— write with deflated explicit VR little endian TS
post-1993 value representations:
+u,--enable-new-vr— enable support for new VRs (UN/UT) (default)-u,--disable-new-vr— disable support for new VRs, convert to OB
group length encoding:
+g=,--group-length-recalc— recalculate group lengths if present (default)+g,--group-length-create— always write with group length elements-g,--group-length-remove— always write without group length elements
length encoding in sequences and items:
+e,--length-explicit— write with explicit lengths (default)-e,--length-undefined— write with undefined lengths
data set trailing padding (not with --write-dataset):
-p=,--padding-retain— do not change padding (default if not--write-dataset)-p,--padding-off— no padding (implicit if--write-dataset)+p,--padding-create[f]ile-pad[i]tem-pad: integer— align file on multiple of f bytes and items on multiple of i bytes
deflate compression level (only with --write-xfer-deflated):
+cl,--compression-level[l]evel: integer (default: 6)—0=uncompressed,1=fastest,9=best compression
✨ NOTES ✨
💀 DICOM Conformance
the xml2dsr utility supports the following SOP Classes, and yes we're listing every single one because she's thorough 💅
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—1.2.840.10008.5.1.4.1.1.88.77RenditionSelectionDocumentRealTimeCommunication—1.2.840.10008.10.4(*)
(*) heads up bestie: this is not a Storage SOP Class, but used for Real-Time Communication. 🫶please note that currently only mandatory and some optional attributes are supported. so like, not everything, but a lot. ✨
🧚 Character Encoding
the DICOM character encoding is determined automatically from the element with tag "0008,0005" (Specific Character Set) — if present. the following character sets are currently supported (requires libxml to include iconv support, see --version output):
ASCII—(ISO_IR 6)—(UTF-8)UTF-8—"ISO_IR 192"—(UTF-8)ISO Latin 1—"ISO_IR 100"—(ISO-8859-1)ISO Latin 2—"ISO_IR 101"—(ISO-8859-2)ISO Latin 3—"ISO_IR 109"—(ISO-8859-3)ISO Latin 4—"ISO_IR 110"—(ISO-8859-4)ISO Latin 5—"ISO_IR 148"—(ISO-8859-9)ISO Latin 9—"ISO_IR 203"—(ISO-8859-15)Cyrillic—"ISO_IR 144"—(ISO-8859-5)Arabic—"ISO_IR 127"—(ISO-8859-6)Greek—"ISO_IR 126"—(ISO-8859-7)Hebrew—"ISO_IR 138"—(ISO-8859-8)Thai—"ISO_IR 166"—(TIS-620)Japanese—"ISO 2022 IR 13\ISO 2022 IR 87"—(ISO-2022-JP)Korean—"ISO 2022 IR 6\ISO 2022 IR 149"—(ISO-2022-KR)Chinese—"ISO 2022 IR 6\ISO 2022 IR 58"—(ISO-2022-CN)Chinese—"GB18030"—(GB18030)Chinese—"GBK"—(GBK)
🍓 Compression
if libxml is compiled with zlib support, the input file (xmlfile-in) can also be compressed with ZIP, which usually results in much smaller files. check the output of option --version to see whether zlib support is available. iconic behavior honestly 🔥
😭 Limitations
the XML Schema dsr2xml.xsd does not support all variations of the dsr2xml output format. however, the default output format (plus option --use-xml-namespace) should work. so like, keep it default bestie 💜
different versions of libxml seem to have different limits for the maximum length of an XML element value. therefore, it should be avoided to use very long element values. a typical limit for libxml version 2.7.3 (and above) is 10 MB for a single element value. no cap, don't push her past that 💀
✨ LOGGING ✨
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. in such very severe error events, the application will usually terminate. 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. 🎀
✨ 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. ⭐
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, bestie 🙈. 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). ✨
✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨
the xml2dsr 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. 😭
✨ FILES ✨
<datadir>/dsr2xml.xsd— XML Schema file 🦋
💫 SEE ALSO 💫
dsr2xml(1)— the reverse girlypop of this whole operation, bestie. She takes a DSR file and turns it back into XML, so like… the two of them are literally each other's mirror selfie. Obsessed 🪞✨
🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀
Copyright (C) 2003-2026 by OFFIS e.V., Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany.
That's the legal queen right there — OFFIS e.V., posted up at Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany, holding it down since 2003 all the way through 2026. Respect the elders fr fr 👑🫶
okay that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 You made it to the end, and honestly? Iconic behavior. This was Version 3.7.1, dated Sat Oct 17 2026 09:34:01 — so go forth, convert those XML files to DSR, and slay ✨🦋💅 periodt.
📦 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