XXD(1)			    General Commands Manual			XXD(1)



NAME
       xxd - make a hex dump 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 representation, but has the advantage of decoding to	 stan-
       dard 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 `-' character 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 hex dump.  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  hexadecimal and followed by an ASCII (or EBCDIC) representa-
	      tion. The command line switches -p, -i do	 not  work  with  this
	      mode.

       -c cols | -cols cols
	      Format  <cols> octets per line. Default 16 (-i: 12, -ps: 30, -b:
	      6). Max 256.  No maximum for -ps. With -ps,  0  results  in  one
	      long line of output.

       -C | -capitalize
	      Capitalize  variable  names  in C include file style, when using
	      -i.

       -E | -EBCDIC
	      Change the character encoding in the righthand column from ASCII
	      to EBCDIC.  This does not change the hexadecimal representation.
	      The option is meaningless in combinations with -r, -p or -i.

       -e     Switch to little-endian  hex  dump.   This  option  treats  byte
	      groups as words in little-endian byte order.  The default group-
	      ing of 4 bytes may  be  changed  using  -g.   This  option  only
	      applies to the hex dump, leaving the ASCII (or EBCDIC) represen-
	      tation unchanged.	 The command line switches -r, -p, -i  do  not
	      work with this mode.

       -g bytes | -groupsize bytes
	      Separate	the  output of every <bytes> bytes (two hex characters
	      or eight bit digits each) by a whitespace.  Specify -g 0 to sup-
	      press grouping.  <Bytes> defaults to 2 in normal mode, 4 in lit-
	      tle-endian 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  defini-
	      tion  is	written (named after the input file), unless xxd reads
	      from stdin.

       -l len | -len len
	      Stop after writing <len> octets.

       -n name	|  -name name
	      Override the variable name output when -i is used. The array  is
	      named name and the length is named name_len.

       -o offset
	      Add <offset> to the displayed file position.

       -p | -ps | -postscript | -plain
	      Output  in  PostScript  continuous hex dump style. Also known as
	      plain hex dump style.

       -r | -revert
	      Reverse operation: convert (or patch) hex dump into binary.   If
	      not  writing  to stdout, xxd writes into its output file without
	      truncating it. Use the combination -r -p to read plain hexadeci-
	      mal dumps without line number information and without a particu-
	      lar column layout. Additional whitespace	and  line  breaks  are
	      allowed  anywhere. Use the combination -r -b to read a bits dump
	      instead of a hex dump.

       -R when
	      In output the hex-value and the value are both colored with  the
	      same color depending on the hex-value. Mostly helping to differ-
	      entiate printable and non-printable characters.  when is	never,
	      always,  or  auto.   When	 the $NO_COLOR environment variable is
	      set, colorization will be disabled.

       -seek offset
	      When used after -r: revert with <offset> added to file positions
	      found in hex dump.

       -s [+][-]seek
	      Start at <seek> bytes abs. (or rel.) infile offset.  + indicates
	      that the seek is relative to the	current	 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 built-in magic while evaluating	line  number  informa-
       tion.   If  the	output	file is seekable, then the line numbers at the
       start of each hex dump 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 output 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 hex dumps, 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 hex
       dump  with  xxd -r -p does not depend on the correct number 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 difference 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

       Hex  dump  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

       Hex dump from file position 0x100 (=1024-768) onwards.
       % 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 a continuous hex dump with 20 octets per line.
       % xxd -l 120 -ps -c 20 xxd.1
       2e54482058584420312022417567757374203139
       39362220224d616e75616c207061676520666f72
       20787864220a2e5c220a2e5c222032317374204d
       617920313939360a2e5c22204d616e2070616765
       20617574686f723a0a2e5c2220202020546f6e79
       204e7567656e74203c746f6e79407363746e7567

       Hex dump 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  <tony@sctnug

       Display just the date from the file xxd.1
       % xxd -s 0x36 -l 13 -c 13 xxd.1
       0000036: 3231 7374 204d 6179 2031 3939 36  21st May 1996

       Copy input_file to output_file and prepend 100 bytes of value 0x00.
       % xxd input_file | xxd -r -s 100 > 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

       Hex dump 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 line numbers 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  hex  dump  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
       hex dump 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 hex dump.  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 impossible).

       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 tool's weirdness matches its creator's 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
       <jnweiger@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

       Distribute freely and credit me,
       make money and share with me,
       lose money and don't ask me.

       Manual page started by Tony Nugent
       <tony@sctnugen.ppp.gu.edu.au> <T.Nugent@sct.gu.edu.au>
       Small changes by Bram Moolenaar.	 Edited by Juergen Weigert.

Manual page for xxd		  August 1996				XXD(1)