Valve's KeyValue for .NET

This library aims to be fully compatible with Valve's various implementations of KeyValues format parsing (believe us, it's not consistent).

KeyValues1

Used by Steam and the Source engine.

Deserializing text

Basic deserialization

var stream = File.OpenRead("file.vdf"); // or any other Stream

var kv = KVSerializer.Create(KVSerializationFormat.KeyValues1Text);
KVObject data = kv.Deserialize(stream);

Console.WriteLine(data["some key"]);

Typed deserialization

public class SimpleObject
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

var stream = File.OpenRead("file.vdf"); // or any other Stream

var kv = KVSerializer.Create(KVSerializationFormat.KeyValues1Text);
KVObject data = kv.Deserialize<SimpleObject>(stream);

Options

Deserialize method also accepts an KVSerializerOptions object.

By default, operating system specific conditionals are enabled based on the OS the code is running on (RuntimeInformation).

KVSerializerOptions accepts has the following options:

• Conditions - List of conditions to use to match conditional values.
• HasEscapeSequences - Whether the parser should translate escape sequences (e.g. \n, \t).
• EnableValveNullByteBugBehavior - Whether invalid escape sequences should truncate strings rather than throwing a InvalidDataException.
• FileLoader - Provider for referenced files with #include or #base directives.

var options = new KVSerializerOptions
{
    HasEscapeSequences = true,
};
options.Conditions.Clear(); // Remove default conditionals set by the library
options.Conditions.Add("X360WIDE");

var stream = File.OpenRead("file.vdf");

var kv = KVSerializer.Create(KVSerializationFormat.KeyValues1Text);
var data = kv.Deserialize(stream, options);

Deserializing binary

Essentially the same as text, just change KeyValues1Text to KeyValues1Binary.

Serializing to text

class DataObject
{
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public string Developer { get; set; }

    [KVProperty("description")]
    public string Summary { get; set; }

    [KVIgnore]
    public string ExtraData { get; set; }
}

var data = new DataObject
{
    Developer = "Valve Software",
    Name = "Dota 2",
    Summary = "Dota 2 is a complex game.",
    ExtraData = "This will not be serialized."
};

using var stream = File.OpenWrite("file.vdf");

var kv = KVSerializer.Create(KVSerializationFormat.KeyValues1Text);
kv.Serialize(stream, data, "root object name");

Serializing to binary

Essentially the same as text, just change KeyValues1Text to KeyValues1Binary.