hexdump

Display file contents in hexadecimal format.

Supplemental Information

The hexdump command is typically used to view the hexadecimal encoding of binary files, but it can actually be used to view any file.

Syntax

hexdump [options] [file]...

Options

-n length    # Interpret only length bytes of input.
-C           # Canonical hex+ASCII display.
-b           # One-byte octal display.
-c           # One-byte character display.
-d           # Two-byte decimal display.
-o           # Two-byte octal display.
-x           # Two-byte hexadecimal display.
-s offset    # Skip offset bytes from the beginning of the input.
-e format    # Specify a format string for displaying data. The format string is enclosed in single quotes and follows the pattern: 'a/b "format1" "format2"'.

Each format string consists of three parts separated by spaces:

1. a/b: b specifies the number of bytes to apply format1 to, and a specifies the number of bytes to apply format2 to. Typically a > b, and b can only be 1, 2, or 4. a is optional; if omitted, it defaults to 1.
2. format1 and format2 can use printf-style format strings:
   • %02d: Two-digit decimal
   • %03x: Three-digit hexadecimal
   • %02o: Two-digit octal
   • %c: Single character

Special sequences:

• %_ad: Display the address (byte offset) in decimal.
• %_ax: Display the address in hexadecimal.
• %_ao: Display the address in octal.
• %_p: For non-printing characters, display a dot (.).

Multiple -e options can be used to display multiple format strings per line.

Examples

hexdump -e '16/1 "%02X " "  |  "' -e '16/1 "%_p" "\n"' test
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F  |  ................  
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F  |  ................  
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F  |   !"#$%&'()*+,-./