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Format support

wowlib targets the last minor release of every major expansion, Vanilla through The War Within. Each format is modelled for all versions in one versioned entity; the matrix below shows how far each has been verified.

Round-trip guarantees — formats whose containers allow it are byte-perfect (write(read(bytes)) == bytes); offset-table formats are semantic (read(write(x)) == x, canonical relayout on write). Unknown and undocumented chunks are preserved verbatim, never dropped.

  • ✅ — implemented, round-trip verified against a real client's file corpus
  • 🟡 — implemented, awaiting a client install to verify against
  • ➖ — not applicable to that client
Format Round-trip Vanilla
1.12.1		 TBC
2.4.3		 WotLK
3.3.5a		 Cata
4.3.4		 MoP
5.4.8		 WoD
6.2.4		 Legion
7.3.5		 BfA
8.3.7		 SL
9.2.7		 DF
10.2.7		 TWW
11.2.7
WMO (root + groups) byte-perfect 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
M2 (+ .skin .anim .skel .bone)1 semantic 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
ADT (root + split files)2 semantic 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
WDT (+ _occ _lgt _fogs _mpv) byte-perfect 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
WDL byte-perfect 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
BLP3 byte-perfect 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡
DBC / DB24 byte-perfect (WDBC/WDB2), semantic (WDC*) ✅ WDBC ✅ WDBC ✅ WDBC ✅ WDB2 🟡 WDB2 🟡 WDB2 🟡 WDC1 🟡 WDC3 ✅ WDC3 🟡 WDC5 🟡 WDC5
MPQ storage & patch chain5 — ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🟡 ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖
CASC storage — ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ 🟡 🟡 🟡 ✅ 🟡 🟡

Classic clients

WoW Classic Era, the Classic progression realms (BCC, WotLK, Cataclysm, MoP Classic) and the Anniversary realms are not old clients — they are the modern client rebuilt from whatever retail branch was current, shipping old-looking content. Classic Era 1.15.9 is a Midnight-era CASC client; Cata Classic 4.4.2 writes War Within-era files. One version number can even span two engines (4.4.0 shipped on Dragonflight and, months later, on The War Within), and wow_classic_titan calls itself 3.80.

wowlib keys these off the build number — Blizzard's counter is global across every product — via a flavor on ClientVersion and the format_lineage it implies, so a Classic client resolves to whichever retail column above its files actually match. ClientInstall.detect reads the exact version and product code off an installation; see Classic clients.

Coverage therefore rides on the retail columns. There is no Classic install locally, so the build → engine mapping is covered by unit tests rather than a file corpus.

Not yet implemented

  • Structured M2 .phys records
  • Structured ADT _obj1/_lod (and blend-mesh) chunks
  • TACT decryption of encrypted DB2 sections
  • Cross-version format conversion (scaffolding only)
  • Lua bindings (annotated throughout, module deferred)
  • Hotfix caches (DBCache.bin)
  • Standalone formats not yet started: .tex, .lit, .wlw/.wlq/.wlm, …

  1. .phys is carried as an opaque blob for now (structured records planned). Semantic round-trip means the writer relays out offset tables canonically, so output is equivalent, not byte-identical. ↩

  2. Monolithic (WotLK-) and split (Cata+ _tex0/_obj0/_obj1/_lod) layouts both supported; _obj1/_lod LOD chunks currently round-trip verbatim as raw chunks, structured access planned. ↩

  3. BLP is identical across all client versions; verification spans the corpora we have locally. JPEG-encoded BLPs round-trip verbatim but do not decode. ↩

  4. Typed record structs for 1221 tables are generated from WoWDBDefs for every era. WDC4 (10.1–10.2.5) is implemented as well. Encrypted (TACT) DB2 sections are preserved and reported; key injection is wired but not yet exercisable locally. ↩

  5. The 3.3.5a patch chain was verified against the client binary itself (reverse-engineered); the MoP chain table awaits a 5.4.8 install. ↩