.toc (Table of Contents) files contain information about a particular addon (such as its name, description, saved variables, etc), as well as instructions on how the addon should be loaded by the client (for example, the order in which lua and xml files should be loaded). The file must be present, and have the same name (plus extension) as its parent folder for the addon to be recognized by the client.
Basic rules
The .toc file and addon folder name need to match, e.g. ..\Interface\AddOns\MyAddon\
and MyAddon.toc
The file may contain the following elements:
- Metadata as
## Directive: Value
- Comments as
# this is a comment
- A list of files as
myFile.xml
orsubfolder\anotherFile.lua
Whitespace before #
will be interpreted as the start of a filename. However, the client trims whitespace around metadata values (after the colon).
Backslashes (\
) are recommended for subdirectories to prevent issues with <Include> tags.
## Interface: 90200 ## Title: Waiting for Godot ## Notes: Nothing to be done. ## Version: 1.0 # This line is a comment Vladimir.xml Estragon.lua libs\SomeLibrary.lua
Multiple client flavors
Classic and retail versions of the game can be properly supported by including multiple TOC files in the same addon.[1] The client first searches for the respective suffix and otherwise falls back to AddonName.toc
Flavor | Suffix |
---|---|
![]() |
AddonName_Mainline.toc
|
![]() |
AddonName_TBC.toc
|
![]() |
AddonName_Vanilla.toc
|
- Clients also recognize legacy suffixes
-BCC
and-Classic
. - It's recommended to simply use
AddonName.toc
for retail since CurseForge otherwise will not accept the zip.
File load order
The .toc file provides an ordered list of files to be loaded by the client. In the earlier example:
- Vladimir.xml loads first, and is in the same folder as the .toc file
- Estragon.lua loads second, and is in the same folder as the .toc file
- SomeLibrary.lua loads third, and is in a subfolder called libs
Not every file must appear in a .toc list:
- XML files may contain <Script file="nameOfAnotherFile.lua" /> or <Include file="alsoLoadThis.xml" />
- Texture:SetTexture() and PlaySoundFile() can use images and sounds contained within the addon folder and its subfolders
Interface version
## Interface: 90200
The interface metadata specifies which version of the game client the addon has been made for. This field prevents users from experiencing errors by loading out-of-date addons or mixing Retail and Classic; unless they explicity ignore warnings and choose "Load out of date addons". Omitting this field causes the game to treat the addon as always out of date.
There are a number of ways to get the current interface version:
- It probably is 90200 (retail), 20504 (bc classic) or 11403 (classic)
- But these numbers are maintained locally, so they might be out of date.
- Use GetBuildInfo
- In particular,
/dump select(4, GetBuildInfo())
should output the correct version to your chat frame. - Steal it from another AddOn
- Recently updated AddOns, which are not listed as "out of date" by the client contain the latest Interface version in their toc.
Prior to patch 8.2.0:
- Extract FrameXML and check FrameXML.toc
- Launch wow with the
-console
flag, then at the login screen, activate the console using the `/~ key, and typeExportInterfaceFiles code
to extract FrameXML files into World of Warcraft\BlizzardInterfaceCode. - View FrameXML.toc online
- For instance at wowcompares.
AddOns list formatting
The following directives change how an AddOn appears in the AddOns list. Both may be coloured using UI escape sequences (e.g. |c########|r
), or localized by appending a hyphen and the locale code (e.g.Title-enGB
). Later entries overwrite earlier ones, so the non-localized fallback should go first.
Title
## Title: Waiting for Godot ## Title-frFR: En attendant Godot
Notes
## Notes: This word is |cFFFF0000red|r
Loading conditions
The following directives control when an AddOn loads, and any dependencies that must or may load first.
LoadOnDemand
Dependencies
RequiredDeps
and any word beginning with Dep
.
## Dependencies: someAddOn, someOtherAddOn
OptionalDeps
## OptionalDeps: someAddOn, someOtherAddOn
LoadWith
## LoadWith: someAddOn, someOtherAddOn
LoadManagers
## LoadManagers: someAddOn, someOtherAddOn
DefaultState
disabled
to require the user to explicitly enable the AddOn in the AddOns list.
## DefaultState: disabled
Saved variables
- Main article: Saving variables between game sessions
SavedVariables
WTF/[account]/SavedVariables
.
## SavedVariables: foo, bar
SavedVariablesPerCharacter
WTF/[account]/[server]/[character]/SavedVariables
.
## SavedVariablesPerCharacter: anotherVariable
Informational
The following metadata may be accessed using GetAddOnMetadata().
- Author
- The AddOn author's name, displayed
- Version
- The AddOn version. Some automatic updating tools may prefer that this string begins with a numeric version number.
- X-_____
- Any custom metadata prefixed by "X-", such as "X-Date", "X-Website" or "X-Feedback"
Restricted
The following tag is inaccessible to third-party AddOns.
- Secure
1
with Blizzard's digital signature to indicate a secure AddOn.
Details
- WoW reads up to the first 1024 characters of each line only. Additional characters are ignored and do not cause an error.
- Starting from Patch 9.0, 1.14.0 and 2.5.3, newly created/added files and even complete addons, are also detected when doing a
/reload
after the game started.
Patch changes
Patch 9.1.0 (2021-06-29): Multiple TOC files now possible using a suffix to disambiguate Classic, BCC and Retail.[1]
Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): /reload recognizes changes to TOC metadata and entirely new files.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): /reload recognizes changes to the file order.
Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22): Added LoadManagers metadata
Patch 1.11.0 (2006-06-19): Added Secure metadata
Patch 1.9.0 (2006-01-03): Added LoadWith metadata
See also
- GetAddOnInfo returns basic information about an addon.
- GetAddOnMetadata returns information listed in a specified .toc tag.
- GetBuildInfo returns the client's interface version
- Using the AddOn namespace
References
- ^ a b Meo
rawr. Multiple Interface Version Support. WoWUIBugs.