StringTable Asset

StringTable assets are essentially the CoD engine's way of storing Excel tables for different types of data for different usages. This asset has existed on every CoD from the earliest Call of Duty 4 Alpha to Ghosts. The number of values is columnCount * rowCount. To get a particular cell index, follow this...

desiredEntry = (columnCount * desiredRow) + desiredColumn;

Call of Duty 4 & World at War

This StringTable is about as simple as it gets.

struct StringTable
{
  const char *name;
  int columnCount;
  int rowCount;
  const char **values;
};

Modern Warfare 2 & 3 & Ghosts

struct StringEntry 
{
  const char *value;
  unsigned int hash; 
};

struct StringTable 
{
  const char *name;
  int columnCount;
  int rowCount;
  StringEntry *strings;
};

The hash in StringEntry can be generated by this function:

unsigned int hash(const char* str)
{
  unsigned int hash = 0;

  while(*str != 0)
    hash = tolower( *str++ ) + (31 * hash);

  return hash;
}

Black Ops 1 & 2

struct StringEntry
{
  const char *value;
  unsigned int hash;
};

struct StringTable
{
  const char *name;
  int columnCount;
  int rowCount;
  StringEntry *values;
  unsigned __int16 *cellIndex;
};

The hash in StringEntry can be generated by this function:

unsigned int hash(const char* str)
{
  unsigned int hash = 5381;
	 
  while( *str != 0)
    hash = ((hash << 5) + hash) + *str++;
		 
  return hash;
}

Source Format

StringTables are stored in "raw/" at optional paths as comma-seperated Excel tables, similar to below...

entry1,entry2,entry3
entry4,entry5,entry6

For example, take a look at "mp/clantagfeatures.csv" from Black Ops 1.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cpp">
#Clan Tag Features,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
a0,b1,c2,d3,e4,f5,g6,h7,i8,j9,k10,l11,m12,n13,o14,p15,q16
#INDX,#name,#unlocklvl,#unlockplvl,#cost,#type,#data,#nframes,#phase,#frame1,#frame2,#frame3,#frame4,#frame5,#frame6,#frame7,#frame8
0,none,,,,tagcolor,,,,,,,,,,,
1,red,,13,250,tagcolor,1,,,,,,,,,,
2,green,,13,250,tagcolor,2,,,,,,,,,,
3,yellow,,13,250,tagcolor,3,,,,,,,,,,
4,blue,,13,250,tagcolor,4,,,,,,,,,,
5,cyan,,13,250,tagcolor,5,,,,,,,,,,
6,magenta,,13,250,tagcolor,6,,,,,,,,,,
</syntaxhighlight>