HEXDUMP(1) | General Commands Manual | HEXDUMP(1) |
hexdump
— ASCII,
decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
hexdump |
[-bcCdovx ] [-e
format_string] [-f
format_file] [-n
length]
[-s offset]
file ... |
The hexdump
utility is a filter which
displays the specified files, or the standard input, if no files are
specified, in a user specified format.
The options are as follows:
-b
-c
-C
-d
-e
format_string-f
format_file#
) are ignored.-n
length-o
-s
offset0x
or
0X
, offset is interpreted as
a hexadecimal number, otherwise, with a leading 0
,
offset is interpreted as an octal number. Appending
the character b
, k
,
m
, or g
to
offset causes it to be interpreted as a multiple of
512
, 1024
,
1048576
, or 1073741824
,
respectively.-v
hexdump
to display all input data. Without
the -v
option, any number of groups of output
lines, which would be identical to the immediately preceding group of
output lines (except for the input offsets), are replaced with a line
comprised of a single asterisk.-x
For each input file, hexdump
sequentially
copies the input to standard output, transforming the data according to the
format strings specified by the -e
and
-f
options, in the order that they were
specified.
A format string contains any number of format units, separated by whitespace. A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte count, and a format.
The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to one. Each format is applied iteration count times.
The byte count is an optional positive integer. If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by each iteration of the format.
If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count to disambiguate them. Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote (" ") marks. It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see fprintf(3)), with the following exceptions:
NUL | \0 |
<alert character> | \a |
<backspace> | \b |
<form-feed> | \f |
<newline> | \n |
<carriage return> | \r |
<tab> | \t |
<vertical tab> | \v |
The hexdump
utility also supports the
following additional conversion strings:
_a
[dox
]d
,
o
, and x
specify the
display base as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively._A
[dox
]_a
conversion string except that
it is only performed once, when all of the input data has been
processed._c
_p
.
”._u
000 NUL | 001 SOH | 002 STX | 003 ETX | 004 EOT | 005 ENQ |
006 ACK | 007 BEL | 008 BS | 009 HT | 00A LF | 00B VT |
00C FF | 00D CR | 00E SO | 00F SI | 010 DLE | 011 DC1 |
012 DC2 | 013 DC3 | 014 DC4 | 015 NAK | 016 SYN | 017 ETB |
018 CAN | 019 EM | 01A SUB | 01B ESC | 01C FS | 01D GS |
01E RS | 01F US | 07F DEL |
The default and supported byte counts for the conversion characters are as follows:
The amount of data interpreted by each format string is the sum of the data required by each format unit, which is the iteration count times the byte count, or the iteration count times the number of bytes required by the format if the byte count is not specified.
The input is manipulated in ``blocks'', where a block is defined as the largest amount of data specified by any format string. Format strings interpreting less than an input block's worth of data, whose last format unit both interprets some number of bytes and does not have a specified iteration count, have the iteration count incremented until the entire input block has been processed or there is not enough data remaining in the block to satisfy the format string.
If, either as a result of user specification or
hexdump
modifying the iteration count as described
above, an iteration count is greater than one, no trailing whitespace
characters are output during the last iteration.
It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple
conversion characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion
characters or strings is _a
or
_A
.
If, as a result of the specification of the
-n
option or end-of-file being reached, input data
only partially satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded
sufficiently to display all available data (i.e., any format units
overlapping the end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
number of spaces. An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of
spaces output by an s
conversion character with the
same field width and precision as the original conversion character or
conversion string but with any “+
”,
“ ”, “#
”
conversion flag characters removed, and referencing a NULL string.
If no format strings are specified, the default display is
equivalent to specifying the -x
option.
The hexdump
utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
Dump input in canonical (hex+ASCII) form:
$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -C 00000000 46 72 65 65 42 53 44 3a 20 54 68 65 20 70 6f 77 |FreeBSD: The pow| 00000010 65 72 20 74 6f 20 73 65 72 76 65 0a |er to serve.| 0000001c
Same as above but skipping the first 4 bytes of stdin and interpreting only 3 bytes of input:
$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -C -s 4 -n 3 00000004 42 53 44 |BSD| 00000007
Assuming a format file named format.txt with the following contents that specify a perusal format:
"%06.6_ao " 12/1 "%3_u " "\t\t" "%_p " "\n"
Dump input in canonical form using the format in format.txt:
$ echo "FreeBSD" | hexdump -f format.txt -C 000000 F r e e B S D lf F r e e B S D . 00000000 46 72 65 65 42 53 44 0a |FreeBSD.| 00000008
Assuming a format file named format.txt
with the following contents that simulate the -x
option:
"%07.7_Ax\n" "%07.7_ax " 8/2 "%04x " "\n"
Dump input in canonical form using the format in format.txt:
$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -f format.txt -C 0000000 7246 6565 5342 3a44 5420 6568 7020 776f 00000000 46 72 65 65 42 53 44 3a 20 54 68 65 20 70 6f 77 |FreeBSD: The pow| 0000010 7265 7420 206f 6573 7672 0a65 00000010 65 72 20 74 6f 20 73 65 72 76 65 0a |er to serve.| 0000001c
June 29, 2020 | macOS 14.6 |