What is DFLangOpt?

It's a commandline tool for processing language files. It is mainly intended for use by modders and translators, but can be used by players to slightly mod their game.

Quick start - run the program without any options for a full list of supported command line options. Look in the subdiretories for example batch files. Post to the thread or PM me if you have any questions, suggestions requests or bug reports.

What can it do?

Sort your language file : It outputs sorted language files. The advantage of this is that if you use a language_words.txt file which has it's keys sorted then the naming options in-game are also sorted. Future versions will have a non-sorting option if there is a demand / technical reason to do so.

Trim crap from your language file: It can also "optimize" your language_words.txt file. There are many naming options which are identical but have a different grammatical context, e.g. "aces" and "aces" are two separate options cluttering up the lists when you try and name your group or squads. Other than a column on the right when you name things telling you whether it's "aces" the plural noun or "aces" the present participle verb, this NEVER has any effect on your game, except to clutter the lists, taking up your time and your PCs memory. As a bonus, because common words are culled a bit (it leaves ace, aces, aged, acing alone as separate words), then uncommon words are more likely to appear in names, giving more variety along with the memory savings.

Add new crap to your language file: There are many valid options for naming things that just aren't allowed in the regular language files. There is an option in dflangopt to add new options to the existing word system, thus creating millions of place names, group names etc that were impossible before. by running the "expand" option on a your language file, dflangopt runs some common-sense improvements on naming options, e.g. allowing plurals where they should be allowed (A group name "The animal"or "the angel" was allowed, but "the Animals" or "the angels" was not), and allowing any verb to be used as an adjective: "dancingblades" can be a fortress name if you run this, something not allowed in Vanllia DF.

Find gaps in your languages: New versions of DF can bring new words, so can mods. If you want to use a language from an old mod, or update them for a new mod, then some words from that language will be "blank" when you use them in the current game, or convert them to Masterwork DF (which contains words Toady removed from Vanilla). dflangopt can compare a language you provide to a specified language_words.txt and spit out a file showing what you're missing, saving a lot of manual effort.

Merge language files: I use this to speed up translation efforts for updating my real-world language pack. Using the "gaps" option, you can spit out a list of missing words, drop them straight into Google Translate, clean up the list, drop it back into dflangopt's directory then double-click a batch file to merge that into the language file you're working on.

Future Planned Features

One goal of dflangopt development is to expand the allowed complexity of languages in Dwarf Fortress, this will involve splitting plurals and singular usages, separating verb, noun and adjective usages. The first major goal of this will be to more correctly render three existing real-world languages; English, German as possibly Japanese. A system will also be developed so that existing language files can be ported to work seamlessly with the "expanded" system.

Developed by Reelya ** not associated with Dflang **