About
Valve VDF Key/Value format parser (text and binary).
This format can be found in Steam protobuffer message and in the Steam Client files as well as some Source Engine stuff.
📦 Scoped @xan105 packages are for my own personal use but feel free to use them.
Example
Reading binary VDF .bin file
import { parse } from "@xan105/vdf/binary";
import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";
const filePath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\appcache\\stats\\UserGameStatsSchema_218620.bin";
const buffer = await readFile(filePath);
const vdf = parse(buffer);Reading text VDF file
import { parse } from "@xan105/vdf";
import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";
const filePath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\appcache\\localization.vdf";
const string = await readFile(filePath, "utf8");
const vdf = parse(string);Install
npm install @xan105/vdf
API
Named export
parse(string: string, option?: object): object
Decode the VDF key/value text formatted string into an object.
⚙️ Options
-
translate?: boolean | object
translate option accepts the following object for granular control or a boolean which force all options to true/false:
| name | type | default | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| bool | boolean | true | String to boolean |
| number | boolean | false | String to number or bigint |
| unsafe | boolean | false | Set to true to keep unsafe integer instead of bigint |
❌ Throws on error
Example:
import { parse } from "@xan105/vdf";
import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";
const filePath = "steam_input_for_ps4_controller.vdf";
const string = await readFile(filePath, "utf8");
const vdf = parse(string, { translate: {
bool: true,
number: true,
unsafe: false
}});
//All values will be string
const vdf = parse(string, { translate: false });⚠️ JSON compatibility
Some integers will be represented as BigInt due to their size if the related translate options are used.
BigInt is not a valid value in the JSON spec.
As such when stringify-ing the returned object you'll need to handle the JSON stringify replacer function to prevent it to fail.
A common workaround is to represent them as a string:
JSON.stringify(data, function(key, value) {
if(typeof value === "bigint")
return value.toString();
else
return value;
});binary
parse(buffer: Buffer, offset?: number[]): object
Decode the VDF key/value binary formatted buffer into an object (starting at the given offset if any).
NB: offset is an array so it can be passed by reference
❌ Throws on error
Example:
import { parse } from "@xan105/vdf/binary";
import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";
const filePath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\appcache\\stats\\UserGameStatsSchema_218620.bin";
const buffer = await readFile(filePath);
const vdf = parse(buffer);💡 Note that binary ".vdf" file usually requires additional processing like handling file header.
⚠️ JSON compatibility
Some numbers will be represented as BigInt due to their size ((u)int64).
BigInt is not a valid value in the JSON spec.
As such when stringify-ing the returned object you'll need to handle the JSON stringify replacer function to prevent it to fail.
A common workaround is to represent them as a string:
JSON.stringify(data, function(key, value) {
if(typeof value === "bigint")
return value.toString();
else
return value;
});