xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/hexdump/hexdump.1 (revision daf1cffce2e07931f27c6c6998652e90df6ba87e)
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32.\"	@(#)hexdump.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd April 18, 1994
36.Dt HEXDUMP 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm hexdump, hd
40.Nd ASCII, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm hexdump
43.Op Fl bcCdovx
44.Op Fl e Ar format_string
45.Op Fl f Ar format_file
46.Op Fl n Ar length
47.Bk -words
48.Op Fl s Ar skip
49.Ek
50.Ar file  ...
51.Nm hd
52.Op Fl bcdovx
53.Op Fl e Ar format_string
54.Op Fl f Ar format_file
55.Op Fl n Ar length
56.Bk -words
57.Op Fl s Ar skip
58.Ek
59.Ar file  ...
60.Sh DESCRIPTION
61The hexdump utility is a filter which displays the specified files, or
62the standard input, if no files are specified, in a user specified
63format.
64.Pp
65The options are as follows:
66.Bl -tag -width Fl
67.It Fl b
68.Em One-byte octal display .
69Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
70space-separated, three column, zero-filled, bytes of input data,
71in octal, per line.
72.It Fl c
73.Em One-byte character display .
74Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
75space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input
76data per line.
77.It Fl C
78.Em Canonical hex+ASCII display.
79Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
80space-separated, two column, hexadecimal bytes, followed by the
81same sixteen bytes in %_p format enclosed in ``|'' characters.
82.Pp
83Calling the command
84.Nm hd
85implies this option.
86.It Fl d
87.Em Two-byte decimal display.
88Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
89space-separated, five column, zero-filled, two-byte units
90of input data, in unsigned decimal, per line.
91.It Fl e Ar format_string
92Specify a format string to be used for displaying data.
93.It Fl f Ar format_file
94Specify a file that contains one or more newline separated format strings.
95Empty lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a hash mark
96.Pf ( Cm \&# )
97are ignored.
98.It Fl n Ar length
99Interpret only
100.Ar length
101bytes of input.
102.It Fl o
103.Em Two-byte octal display.
104Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
105space-separated, six column, zero-filled, two byte quantities of
106input data, in octal, per line.
107.It Fl s Ar offset
108Skip
109.Ar offset
110bytes from the beginning of the input.
111By default,
112.Ar offset
113is interpreted as a decimal number.
114With a leading
115.Cm 0x
116or
117.Cm 0X ,
118.Ar offset
119is interpreted as a hexadecimal number,
120otherwise, with a leading
121.Cm 0 ,
122.Ar offset
123is interpreted as an octal number.
124Appending the character
125.Cm b ,
126.Cm k ,
127or
128.Cm m
129to
130.Ar offset
131causes it to be interpreted as a multiple of
132.Li 512 ,
133.Li 1024 ,
134or
135.Li 1048576 ,
136respectively.
137.It Fl v
138The
139.Fl v
140option causes hexdump to display all input data.
141Without the
142.Fl v
143option, any number of groups of output lines, which would be
144identical to the immediately preceding group of output lines (except
145for the input offsets), are replaced with a line comprised of a
146single asterisk.
147.It Fl x
148.Em Two-byte hexadecimal display.
149Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight, space
150separated, four column, zero-filled, two-byte quantities of input
151data, in hexadecimal, per line.
152.El
153.Pp
154For each input file,
155.Nm hexdump
156sequentially copies the input to standard output, transforming the
157data according to the format strings specified by the
158.Fl e
159and
160.Fl f
161options, in the order that they were specified.
162.Ss Formats
163A format string contains any number of format units, separated by
164whitespace.
165A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte
166count, and a format.
167.Pp
168The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to
169one.
170Each format is applied iteration count times.
171.Pp
172The byte count is an optional positive integer.
173If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by
174each iteration of the format.
175.Pp
176If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash
177must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count
178to disambiguate them.
179Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
180.Pp
181The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote
182(" ") marks.
183It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see
184.Xr fprintf 3 ) ,
185with the
186following exceptions:
187.Bl -bullet -offset indent
188.It
189An asterisk (*) may not be used as a field width or precision.
190.It
191A byte count or field precision
192.Em is
193required for each ``s'' conversion
194character (unlike the
195.Xr fprintf 3
196default which prints the entire string if the precision is unspecified).
197.It
198The conversion characters ``h'', ``l'', ``n'', ``p'' and ``q'' are
199not supported.
200.It
201The single character escape sequences
202described in the C standard are supported:
203.Bd -ragged -offset indent -compact
204.Bl -column <alert_character>
205.It NUL	\e0
206.It <alert character>	\ea
207.It <backspace>	\eb
208.It <form-feed>	\ef
209.It <newline>	\en
210.It <carriage return>	\er
211.It <tab>	\et
212.It <vertical tab>	\ev
213.El
214.Ed
215.El
216.Pp
217Hexdump also supports the following additional conversion strings:
218.Bl -tag -width Fl
219.It Cm \&_a Ns Op Cm dox
220Display the input offset, cumulative across input files, of the
221next byte to be displayed.
222The appended characters
223.Cm d ,
224.Cm o ,
225and
226.Cm x
227specify the display base
228as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively.
229.It Cm \&_A Ns Op Cm dox
230Identical to the
231.Cm \&_a
232conversion string except that it is only performed
233once, when all of the input data has been processed.
234.It Cm \&_c
235Output characters in the default character set.
236Nonprinting characters are displayed in three character, zero-padded
237octal, except for those representable by standard escape notation
238(see above),
239which are displayed as two character strings.
240.It Cm _p
241Output characters in the default character set.
242Nonprinting characters are displayed as a single
243.Dq Cm \&. .
244.It Cm _u
245Output US ASCII characters, 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\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
251.It \&006\ ack\t007\ bel\t008\ bs\t009\ ht\t00A\ lf\t00B\ vt
252.It \&00C\ ff\t00D\ cr\t00E\ so\t00F\ si\t010\ dle\t011\ dc1
253.It \&012\ dc2\t013\ dc3\t014\ dc4\t015\ nak\t016\ syn\t017\ etb
254.It \&018\ can\t019\ em\t01A\ sub\t01B\ esc\t01C\ fs\t01D\ gs
255.It \&01E\ rs\t01F\ us\t0FF\ del
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 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 hexdump modifying
290the iteration count as described above, an iteration count is
291greater than one, no trailing whitespace characters are output
292during the last iteration.
293.Pp
294It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple conversion
295characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion characters
296or strings is
297.Cm \&_a
298or
299.Cm \&_A .
300.Pp
301If, as a result of the specification of the
302.Fl n
303option or end-of-file being reached, input data only partially
304satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded sufficiently
305to display all available data (i.e. any format units overlapping the
306end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
307.Pp
308Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
309number of spaces.
310An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of spaces
311output by an
312.Cm s
313conversion character with the same field width
314and precision as the original conversion character or conversion
315string but with any
316.Dq Li \&+ ,
317.Dq \&\ \& ,
318.Dq Li \&#
319conversion flag characters
320removed, and referencing a NULL string.
321.Pp
322If no format strings are specified, the default display is equivalent
323to specifying the
324.Fl x
325option.
326.Pp
327.Nm hexdump
328exits 0 on success and >0 if an error occurred.
329.Sh EXAMPLES
330Display the input in perusal format:
331.Bd -literal -offset indent
332"%06.6_ao "  12/1 "%3_u "
333"\et\et" "%_p "
334"\en"
335.Ed
336.Pp
337Implement the \-x option:
338.Bd -literal -offset indent
339"%07.7_Ax\en"
340"%07.7_ax  " 8/2 "%04x " "\en"
341.Ed
342.Sh SEE ALSO
343.Xr gdb 1
344