dcmpschk(1)                       OFFIS DCMTK                      dcmpschk(1)

NAME
       dcmpschk - Checking tool for presentation states


SYNOPSIS
       dcmpschk [options] [dcmfile-in...]

DESCRIPTION
       The dcmpschk utility checks DICOM Grayscale Softcopy Presentation State
       objects  for  conformance  with  the standard. The test is performed in
       three phases:

       • Phase 1 checks the Meta-header  of  the  DICOM  file.  It  is  tested
         whether  all  required  attributes are present, whether the SOP class
         and instance UIDs match the UIDs in the main object and  whether  the
         group  length attribute contains a correct value. The Transfer Syntax
         of the Meta header is also checked.

       • Phase  2  performs  a  syntactic   check   of   the   values,   value
         representations  and  value  multiplicities for each attribute in the
         object. The values present in the object under test are compared with
         the definitions of the DICOM data dictionary.

       • Phase  3  performs  a  semantic  check  of  the  integrity   of   the
         Presentation  State.  This phase is omitted when objects of other SOP
         Classes are encountered. Phase 1 and 2 can also be applied  to  other
         DICOM  objects  of  arbitrary  SOP  class.  It  should  be noted that
         dcmpschk does not support Presentation States which contain the  Mask
         Module. These will be rejected with a message that the Mask Module is
         not supported.

PARAMETERS
       dcmfile-in  presentation state file(s) to be checked

OPTIONS
   general options
         -h   --help
                print this help text and exit

              --version
                print version information and exit

              --arguments
                print expanded command line arguments

         -q   --quiet
                quiet mode, print no warnings and errors

         -v   --verbose
                verbose mode, print processing details

         -d   --debug
                debug mode, print debug information

         -ll  --log-level  [l]evel: string constant
                (fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace)
                use level l for the logger

         -lc  --log-config  [f]ilename: string
                use config file f for the logger

   validation options
              --validate-std
                images referenced by GSPS must belong to the
                same SOP class (default)

              --validate-related
                images referenced by GSPS may belong to related
                'for presentation' and 'for processing' SOP class

              --validate-relaxed
                images referenced by GSPS may be any SOP class

LOGGING
       The  level  of  logging  output  of  the various command line tools and
       underlying libraries can be specified by the  user.  By  default,  only
       errors  and  warnings  are  written to the standard error stream. Using
       option --verbose also informational messages  like  processing  details
       are  reported.  Option  --debug  can be used to get more details on the
       internal activity, e.g. for debugging purposes.  Other  logging  levels
       can  be  selected  using option --log-level. In --quiet mode only fatal
       errors are reported. In such very severe error events, the  application
       will  usually  terminate.  For  more  details  on the different logging
       levels, see documentation of module 'oflog'.

       In case the logging output should be written to file  (optionally  with
       logfile  rotation),  to syslog (Unix) or the event log (Windows) option
       --log-config can be used.  This  configuration  file  also  allows  for
       directing  only  certain messages to a particular output stream and for
       filtering certain messages based on the  module  or  application  where
       they  are  generated.  An  example  configuration  file  is provided in
       <etcdir>/logger.cfg.

COMMAND LINE
       All command line tools  use  the  following  notation  for  parameters:
       square  brackets  enclose  optional  values  (0-1), three trailing dots
       indicate that multiple values are allowed (1-n), a combination of  both
       means 0 to n values.

       Command line options are distinguished from parameters by a leading '+'
       or  '-' sign, respectively. Usually, order and position of command line
       options are arbitrary (i.e. they  can  appear  anywhere).  However,  if
       options  are  mutually exclusive the rightmost appearance is used. This
       behavior conforms to the  standard  evaluation  rules  of  common  Unix
       shells.

       In  addition,  one  or more command files can be specified using an '@'
       sign as a prefix to the filename (e.g. @command.txt).  Such  a  command
       argument  is  replaced  by  the  content of the corresponding text file
       (multiple whitespaces are treated as a  single  separator  unless  they
       appear  between  two  quotation marks) prior to any further evaluation.
       Please note that a command file cannot contain  another  command  file.
       This  simple  but  effective  approach  allows  one to summarize common
       combinations of options/parameters and  avoids  longish  and  confusing
       command lines (an example is provided in file <datadir>/dumppat.txt).

ENVIRONMENT
       The  dcmpschk  utility  will  attempt  to  load DICOM data dictionaries
       specified in the DCMDICTPATH environment variable. By default, i.e.  if
       the   DCMDICTPATH   environment   variable   is   not   set,  the  file
       <datadir>/dicom.dic will be loaded unless the dictionary is built  into
       the application (default for Windows).

       The   default   behavior   should  be  preferred  and  the  DCMDICTPATH
       environment variable only used when alternative data  dictionaries  are
       required.  The  DCMDICTPATH environment variable has the same format as
       the Unix shell PATH variable in that a colon (':')  separates  entries.
       On  Windows systems, a semicolon (';') is used as a separator. The data
       dictionary code will  attempt  to  load  each  file  specified  in  the
       DCMDICTPATH  environment variable. It is an error if no data dictionary
       can be loaded.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2000-2025 by OFFIS e.V., Escherweg  2,  26121  Oldenburg,
       Germany.

Version 3.7.0                   Mon Dec 15 2025                    dcmpschk(1)
