xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/hexdump/hexdump.1 (revision 51e235148a4becba94e824a44bd69687644a7f56)
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28.\"	@(#)hexdump.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
29.\"
30.Dd June 29, 2020
31.Dt HEXDUMP 1
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm hexdump , hd
35.Nd ASCII, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Nm
38.Op Fl bcCdovx
39.Op Fl e Ar format_string
40.Op Fl f Ar format_file
41.Op Fl n Ar length
42.Bk -words
43.Op Fl s Ar offset
44.Ek
45.Ar
46.Nm hd
47.Op Fl bcdovx
48.Op Fl e Ar format_string
49.Op Fl f Ar format_file
50.Op Fl n Ar length
51.Bk -words
52.Op Fl s Ar offset
53.Ek
54.Ar
55.Sh DESCRIPTION
56The
57.Nm
58utility is a filter which displays the specified files, or
59the standard input, if no files are specified, in a user specified
60format.
61.Pp
62The options are as follows:
63.Bl -tag -width indent
64.It Fl b
65.Em One-byte octal display .
66Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
67space-separated, three column, zero-filled, bytes of input data,
68in octal, per line.
69.It Fl c
70.Em One-byte character display .
71Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
72space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input
73data per line.
74.It Fl C
75.Em Canonical hex+ASCII display .
76Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
77space-separated, two column, hexadecimal bytes, followed by the
78same sixteen bytes in %_p format enclosed in ``|'' characters.
79.Pp
80Calling the command
81.Nm hd
82implies this option.
83.It Fl d
84.Em Two-byte decimal display .
85Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
86space-separated, five column, zero-filled, two-byte units
87of input data, in unsigned decimal, per line.
88.It Fl e Ar format_string
89Specify a format string to be used for displaying data.
90.It Fl f Ar format_file
91Specify a file that contains one or more newline separated format strings.
92Empty lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a hash mark
93.Pf ( Cm \&# )
94are ignored.
95.It Fl n Ar length
96Interpret only
97.Ar length
98bytes of input.
99.It Fl o
100.Em Two-byte octal display .
101Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
102space-separated, six column, zero-filled, two byte quantities of
103input data, in octal, per line.
104.It Fl s Ar offset
105Skip
106.Ar offset
107bytes from the beginning of the input.
108By default,
109.Ar offset
110is interpreted as a decimal number.
111With a leading
112.Cm 0x
113or
114.Cm 0X ,
115.Ar offset
116is interpreted as a hexadecimal number,
117otherwise, with a leading
118.Cm 0 ,
119.Ar offset
120is interpreted as an octal number.
121Appending the character
122.Cm b ,
123.Cm k ,
124or
125.Cm m
126to
127.Ar offset
128causes it to be interpreted as a multiple of
129.Li 512 ,
130.Li 1024 ,
131or
132.Li 1048576 ,
133respectively.
134.It Fl v
135Cause
136.Nm
137to display all input data.
138Without the
139.Fl v
140option, any number of groups of output lines, which would be
141identical to the immediately preceding group of output lines (except
142for the input offsets), are replaced with a line comprised of a
143single asterisk.
144.It Fl x
145.Em Two-byte hexadecimal display .
146Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight, space
147separated, four column, zero-filled, two-byte quantities of input
148data, in hexadecimal, per line.
149.El
150.Pp
151For each input file,
152.Nm
153sequentially copies the input to standard output, transforming the
154data according to the format strings specified by the
155.Fl e
156and
157.Fl f
158options, in the order that they were specified.
159.Ss Formats
160A format string contains any number of format units, separated by
161whitespace.
162A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte
163count, and a format.
164.Pp
165The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to
166one.
167Each format is applied iteration count times.
168.Pp
169The byte count is an optional positive integer.
170If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by
171each iteration of the format.
172.Pp
173If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash
174must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count
175to disambiguate them.
176Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
177.Pp
178The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote
179(" ") marks.
180It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see
181.Xr fprintf 3 ) ,
182with the
183following exceptions:
184.Bl -bullet -offset indent
185.It
186An asterisk (*) may not be used as a field width or precision.
187.It
188A byte count or field precision
189.Em is
190required for each ``s'' conversion
191character (unlike the
192.Xr fprintf 3
193default which prints the entire string if the precision is unspecified).
194.It
195The conversion characters ``h'', ``l'', ``n'', ``p'' and ``q'' are
196not supported.
197.It
198The single character escape sequences
199described in the C standard are supported:
200.Bd -ragged -offset indent -compact
201.Bl -column <alert_character>
202.It "NUL	\e0"
203.It "<alert character>	\ea"
204.It "<backspace>	\eb"
205.It "<form-feed>	\ef"
206.It "<newline>	\en"
207.It "<carriage return>	\er"
208.It "<tab>	\et"
209.It "<vertical tab>	\ev"
210.El
211.Ed
212.El
213.Pp
214The
215.Nm
216utility also supports the following additional conversion strings:
217.Bl -tag -width Fl
218.It Cm \&_a Ns Op Cm dox
219Display the input offset, cumulative across input files, of the
220next byte to be displayed.
221The appended characters
222.Cm d ,
223.Cm o ,
224and
225.Cm x
226specify the display base
227as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively.
228.It Cm \&_A Ns Op Cm dox
229Identical to the
230.Cm \&_a
231conversion string except that it is only performed
232once, when all of the input data has been processed.
233.It Cm \&_c
234Output characters in the default character set.
235Nonprinting characters are displayed in three character, zero-padded
236octal, except for those representable by standard escape notation
237(see above),
238which are displayed as two character strings.
239.It Cm _p
240Output characters in the default character set.
241Nonprinting characters are displayed as a single
242.Dq Cm \&. .
243.It Cm _u
244Output US ASCII
245characters, with the exception that control characters are
246displayed using the following, lower-case, names.
247Characters greater than 0xff, hexadecimal, are displayed as hexadecimal
248strings.
249.Bl -column 000_nu 001_so 002_st 003_et 004_eo
250.It "000 NUL" Ta "001 SOH" Ta "002 STX" Ta "003 ETX" Ta "004 EOT" Ta "005 ENQ"
251.It "006 ACK" Ta "007 BEL" Ta "008 BS" Ta "009 HT" Ta "00A LF" Ta "00B VT"
252.It "00C FF" Ta "00D CR" Ta "00E\ SO" Ta "00F SI" Ta "010 DLE" Ta "011 DC1"
253.It "012 DC2" Ta "013 DC3" Ta "014 DC4" Ta "015\ NAK" Ta "016 SYN" Ta "017 ETB"
254.It "018 CAN" Ta "019 EM" Ta "01A SUB" Ta "01B ESC" Ta "01C FS" Ta "01D GS"
255.It "01E RS" Ta "01F US" Ta "07F DEL" Ta \& Ta \& Ta \&
256.El
257.El
258.Pp
259The default and supported byte counts for the conversion characters
260are as follows:
261.Bl -tag -width  "Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc" -offset indent
262.It Li \&%_c , \&%_p , \&%_u , \&%c
263One byte counts only.
264.It Xo
265.Li \&%d , \&%i , \&%o ,
266.Li \&%u , \&%X , \&%x
267.Xc
268Four byte default, one, two and four byte counts supported.
269.It Xo
270.Li \&%E , \&%e , \&%f ,
271.Li \&%G , \&%g
272.Xc
273Eight byte default, four and twelve byte counts supported.
274.El
275.Pp
276The amount of data interpreted by each format string is the sum of the
277data required by each format unit, which is the iteration count times the
278byte count, or the iteration count times the number of bytes required by
279the format if the byte count is not specified.
280.Pp
281The input is manipulated in ``blocks'', where a block is defined as the
282largest amount of data specified by any format string.
283Format strings interpreting less than an input block's worth of data,
284whose last format unit both interprets some number of bytes and does
285not have a specified iteration count, have the iteration count
286incremented until the entire input block has been processed or there
287is not enough data remaining in the block to satisfy the format string.
288.Pp
289If, either as a result of user specification or
290.Nm
291modifying
292the iteration count as described above, an iteration count is
293greater than one, no trailing whitespace characters are output
294during the last iteration.
295.Pp
296It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple conversion
297characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion characters
298or strings is
299.Cm \&_a
300or
301.Cm \&_A .
302.Pp
303If, as a result of the specification of the
304.Fl n
305option or end-of-file being reached, input data only partially
306satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded sufficiently
307to display all available data (i.e., any format units overlapping the
308end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
309.Pp
310Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
311number of spaces.
312An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of spaces
313output by an
314.Cm s
315conversion character with the same field width
316and precision as the original conversion character or conversion
317string but with any
318.Dq Li \&+ ,
319.Dq \&\ \& ,
320.Dq Li \&#
321conversion flag characters
322removed, and referencing a NULL string.
323.Pp
324If no format strings are specified, the default display is equivalent
325to specifying the
326.Fl x
327option.
328.Sh EXIT STATUS
329.Ex -std hexdump hd
330.Sh EXAMPLES
331Dump input in canonical (hex+ASCII) form:
332.Bd -literal -offset indent
333$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -C
33400000000  46 72 65 65 42 53 44 3a  20 54 68 65 20 70 6f 77  |FreeBSD: The pow|
33500000010  65 72 20 74 6f 20 73 65  72 76 65 0a              |er to serve.|
3360000001c
337.Ed
338.Pp
339Same as above but skipping the first 4 bytes of stdin and interpreting only 3
340bytes of input:
341.Bd -literal -offset indent
342$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -C -s 4 -n 3
34300000004  42 53 44                                          |BSD|
34400000007
345.Ed
346.Pp
347Assuming a format file named
348.Pa format.txt
349with the following contents that specify a perusal format:
350.Bd -literal -offset indent
351"%06.6_ao "  12/1 "%3_u "
352"\et\et" "%_p "
353"\en"
354.Ed
355.Pp
356Dump input in canonical form using the format in
357.Pa format.txt :
358.Bd -literal -offset indent
359$ echo "FreeBSD" | hexdump -f format.txt -C
360000000   F   r   e   e   B   S   D  lf                          F r e e B S D .
36100000000  46 72 65 65 42 53 44 0a                           |FreeBSD.|
36200000008
363.Ed
364.Pp
365Assuming a format file named
366.Pa format.txt
367with the following contents that simulate the
368.Fl x
369option:
370.Bd -literal -offset indent
371"%07.7_Ax\en"
372"%07.7_ax  " 8/2 "%04x " "\en"
373.Ed
374.Pp
375Dump input in canonical form using the format in
376.Pa format.txt :
377.Bd -literal -offset indent
378$ echo "FreeBSD: The power to serve" | hexdump -f format.txt -C
3790000000  7246 6565 5342 3a44 5420 6568 7020 776f
38000000000  46 72 65 65 42 53 44 3a  20 54 68 65 20 70 6f 77  |FreeBSD: The pow|
3810000010  7265 7420 206f 6573 7672 0a65
38200000010  65 72 20 74 6f 20 73 65  72 76 65 0a              |er to serve.|
3830000001c
384.Ed
385.Sh SEE ALSO
386.Xr od 1
387