Index of Section 1 Manual Pages
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XXD(1) XXD(1)
NAME
xxd - make a hexdump or do the reverse.
SYNOPSIS
xxd -h[elp]
xxd [options] [infile [outfile]]
xxd -r[evert] [options] [infile [outfile]]
DESCRIPTION
xxd creates a hex dump of a given file or standard input.
It can also convert a hex dump back to its original binary
form. Like uuencode(1) and uudecode(1) it allows the
transmission of binary data in a `mail-safe' ASCII repre-
sentation, but has the advantage of decoding to standard
output. Moreover, it can be used to perform binary file
patching.
OPTIONS
If no infile is given, standard input is read. If infile
is specified as a `-' character, then input is taken from
standard input. If no outfile is given (or a `-' charac-
ter is in its place), results are sent to standard output.
Note that a "lazy" parser is used which does not check for
more than the first option letter, unless the option is
followed by a parameter. Spaces between a single option
letter and its parameter are optional. Parameters to
options can be specified in decimal, hexadecimal or octal
notation. Thus -c8, -c 8, -c 010 and -cols 8 are all
equivalent.
-a | -autoskip
toggle autoskip: A single '*' replaces nul-lines.
Default off.
-b | -bits
Switch to bits (binary digits) dump, rather than
hexdump. This option writes octets as eight digits
"1"s and "0"s instead of a normal hexadecimal dump.
Each line is preceded by a line number in hexadeci-
mal and followed by an ascii (or ebcdic) represen-
tation. The command line switches -r, -p, -i do not
work with this mode.
-c cols | -cols cols
format octets per line. Default 16 (-i: 12,
-ps: 30, -b: 6). Max 256.
-E | -EBCDIC
Change the character encoding in the righthand col-
umn from ASCII to EBCDIC. This does not change the
hexadecimal representation. The option is meaning-
less in combinations with -r, -p or -i.
-g bytes | -groupsize bytes
separate the output of every bytes (two hex
characters or eight bit-digits each) by a whites-
pace. Specify -g 0 to suppress grouping.
defaults to 2 in normal mode and 1 in bits mode.
Grouping does not apply to postscript or include
style.
-h | -help
print a summary of available commands and exit. No
hex dumping is performed.
-i | -include
output in C include file style. A complete static
array definition is written (named after the input
file), unless xxd reads from stdin.
-l len | -len len
stop after writing octets.
-p | -ps | -postscript | -plain
output in postscript continuous hexdump style. Also
known as plain hexdump style.
-r | -revert
reverse operation: convert (or patch) hexdump into
binary. If not writing to stdout, xxd writes into
its output file without truncating it. Use the com-
bination -r -p to read plain hexadecimal dumps
without line number information and without a par-
ticular column layout. Additional Whitespace and
line-breaks are allowed anywhere.
-seek offset
When used after -r: revert with added to
file positions found in hexdump.
-s [+][-]seek
start at bytes abs. (or rel.) infile offset.
+ indicates that the seek is relative to the cur-
rent stdin file position (meaningless when not
reading from stdin). - indicates that the seek
should be that many characters from the end of the
input (or if combined with +: before the current
stdin file position). Without -s option, xxd
starts at the current file position.
-u use upper case hex letters. Default is lower case.
-v | -version
show version string.
CAVEATS
xxd -r has some builtin magic while evaluating line number
information. If the output file is seekable, then the
linenumbers at the start of each hexdump line may be out
of order, lines may be missing, or overlapping. In these
cases xxd will lseek(2) to the next position. If the out-
put file is not seekable, only gaps are allowed, which
will be filled by null-bytes.
xxd -r never generates parse errors. Garbage is silently
skipped.
When editing hexdumps, please note that xxd -r skips
everything on the input line after reading enough columns
of hexadecimal data (see option -c). This also means, that
changes to the printable ascii (or ebcdic) columns are
always ignored. Reverting a plain (or postscript) style
hexdump with xxd -r -p does not depend on the correct num-
ber of columns. Here anything that looks like a pair of
hex-digits is interpreted.
Note the difference between
% xxd -i file
and
% xxd -i < file
xxd -s +seek may be different from xxd -s seek, as
lseek(2) is used to "rewind" input. A '+' makes a differ-
ence if the input source is stdin, and if stdin's file
position is not at the start of the file by the time xxd
is started and given its input. The following examples
may help to clarify (or further confuse!)...
Rewind stdin before reading; needed because the `cat' has
already read to the end of stdin.
% sh -c "cat > plain_copy; xxd -s 0 > hex_copy" < file
Hexdump from file position 0x480 (=1024+128) onwards. The
`+' sign means "relative to the current position", thus
the `128' adds to the 1k where dd left off.
% sh -c "dd of=plain_snippet bs=1k count=1; xxd -s +128 >
hex_snippet" < file
Hexdump from file position 0x100 ( = 1024-768) on.
% sh -c "dd of=plain_snippet bs=1k count=1; xxd -s +-768 >
hex_snippet" < file
However, this is a rare situation and the use of `+' is
rarely needed. The author prefers to monitor the effect
of xxd with strace(1) or truss(1), whenever -s is used.
EXAMPLES
Print everything but the first three lines (hex 0x30
bytes) of file.
% xxd -s 0x30 file
Print 3 lines (hex 0x30 bytes) from the end of file.
% xxd -s -0x30 file
Print 120 bytes as continuous hexdump with 20 octets per
line.
% xxd -l 120 -ps -c 20 xxd.1
2e54482058584420312022417567757374203139
39362220224d616e75616c207061676520666f72
20787864220a2e5c220a2e5c222032317374204d
617920313939360a2e5c22204d616e2070616765
20617574686f723a0a2e5c2220202020546f6e79
204e7567656e74203c746f6e79407363746e7567
Hexdump the first 120 bytes of this man page with 12
octets per line.
% xxd -l 120 -c 12 xxd.1
0000000: 2e54 4820 5858 4420 3120 2241 .TH XXD 1 "A
000000c: 7567 7573 7420 3139 3936 2220 ugust 1996"
0000018: 224d 616e 7561 6c20 7061 6765 "Manual page
0000024: 2066 6f72 2078 7864 220a 2e5c for xxd"..\
0000030: 220a 2e5c 2220 3231 7374 204d "..\" 21st M
000003c: 6179 2031 3939 360a 2e5c 2220 ay 1996..\"
0000048: 4d61 6e20 7061 6765 2061 7574 Man page aut
0000054: 686f 723a 0a2e 5c22 2020 2020 hor:..\"
0000060: 546f 6e79 204e 7567 656e 7420 Tony Nugent
000006c: 3c74 6f6e 7940 7363 746e 7567 output_file
Patch the date in the file xxd.1
% echo "0000037: 3574 68" | xxd -r - xxd.1
% xxd -s 0x36 -l 13 -c 13 xxd.1
0000036: 3235 7468 204d 6179 2031 3939 36 25th May 1996
Create a 65537 byte file with all bytes 0x00, except for
the last one which is 'A' (hex 0x41).
% echo "010000: 41" | xxd -r > file
Hexdump this file with autoskip.
% xxd -a -c 12 file
0000000: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ............
*
000fffc: 0000 0000 40 ....A
Create a 1 byte file containing a single 'A' character.
The number after '-r -s' adds to the linenumbers found in
the file; in effect, the leading bytes are suppressed.
% echo "010000: 41" | xxd -r -s -0x10000 > file
Use xxd as a filter within an editor such as vim(1) to
hexdump a region marked between `a' and `z'.
:'a,'z!xxd
Use xxd as a filter within an editor such as vim(1) to
recover a binary hexdump marked between `a' and `z'.
:'a,'z!xxd -r
Use xxd as a filter within an editor such as vim(1) to
recover one line of a hexdump. Move the cursor over the
line and type:
!!xxd -r
Read single characters from a serial line
% xxd -c1 < /dev/term/b &
% stty < /dev/term/b -echo -opost -isig -icanon min 1
% echo -n foo > /dev/term/b
RETURN VALUES
The following error values are returned:
0 no errors encountered.
-1 operation not supported ( xxd -r -i still impossi-
ble).
1 error while parsing options.
2 problems with input file.
3 problems with output file.
4,5 desired seek position is unreachable.
SEE ALSO
uuencode(1), uudecode(1), patch(1)
WARNINGS
The tools weirdness matches its creators brain. Use
entirely at your own risk. Copy files. Trace it. Become a
wizard.
VERSION
This manual page documents xxd version 1.7
AUTHOR
(c) 1990-1997 by Juergen Weigert
Distribute freely and credit me,
make money and share with me,
lose money and don't ask me.
Manual page started by Tony Nugent
Small changes by Bram Moolenaar. Edited by Juergen
Weigert.
Manual page for xxd August 1996 XXD(1)