xref: /original-bsd/usr.bin/hexdump/hexdump.1 (revision 13deef58)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
5.\"
6.\"	@(#)hexdump.1	5.14 (Berkeley) 07/14/92
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt HEXDUMP 1
10.Os
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm hexdump
13.Nd ascii, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm hexdump
16.Op Fl bcdovx
17.Op Fl e Ar format_string
18.Op Fl f Ar format_file
19.Op Fl n Ar length
20.Bk -words
21.Op Fl s Ar skip
22.Ek
23.Ar file  ...
24.Sh DESCRIPTION
25The hexdump utility is a filter which displays the specified files, or
26the standard input, if no files are specified, in a user specified
27format.
28.Pp
29The options are as follows:
30.Bl -tag -width Fl
31.It Fl b
32.Em One-byte octal display .
33Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
34space-separated, three column, zero-filled, bytes of input data,
35in octal, per line.
36.It Fl c
37.Em One-byte character display .
38Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
39space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input
40data per line.
41.It Fl d
42.Em Two-byte decimal display.
43Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
44space-separated, five column, zero-filled, two-byte units
45of input data, in unsigned decimal, per line.
46.It Fl e Ar format_string
47Specify a format string to be used for displaying data.
48.It Fl f Ar format_file
49Specify a file that contains one or more newline separated format strings.
50Empty lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a hash mark
51.Pf ( Cm \&# )
52are ignored.
53.It Fl n Ar length
54Interpret only
55.Ar length
56bytes of input.
57.It Fl o
58.Em Two-byte octal display.
59Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
60space-separated, six column, zero-filled, two byte quantities of
61input data, in octal, per line.
62.It Fl s Ar offset
63Skip
64.Ar offset
65bytes from the beginning of the input.
66By default,
67.Ar offset
68is interpreted as a decimal number.
69With a leading
70.Cm 0x
71or
72.Cm 0X ,
73.Ar offset
74is interpreted as a hexadecimal number,
75otherwise, with a leading
76.Cm 0 ,
77.Ar offset
78is interpreted as an octal number.
79Appending the character
80.Cm b ,
81.Cm k ,
82or
83.Cm m
84to
85.Ar offset
86causes it to be interpreted as a multiple of
87.Li 512 ,
88.Li 1024 ,
89or
90.Li 1048576 ,
91respectively.
92.It Fl v
93The
94.Fl v
95option causes hexdump to display all input data.
96Without the
97.Fl v
98option, any number of groups of output lines, which would be
99identical to the immediately preceding group of output lines (except
100for the input offsets), are replaced with a line comprised of a
101single asterisk.
102.It Fl x
103.Em Two-byte hexadecimal display.
104Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight, space
105separated, four column, zero-filled, two-byte quantities of input
106data, in hexadecimal, per line.
107.El
108.Pp
109For each input file,
110.Nm hexdump
111sequentially copies the input to standard output, transforming the
112data according to the format strings specified by the
113.Fl e
114and
115.Fl f
116options, in the order that they were specified.
117.Ss Formats
118A format string contains any number of format units, separated by
119whitespace.
120A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte
121count, and a format.
122.Pp
123The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to
124one.
125Each format is applied iteration count times.
126.Pp
127The byte count is an optional positive integer.
128If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by
129each iteration of the format.
130.Pp
131If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash
132must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count
133to disambiguate them.
134Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
135.Pp
136The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote
137(" ") marks.
138It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see
139.Xr fprintf 3 ) ,
140with the
141following exceptions:
142.Bl -bullet -offset indent
143.It
144An asterisk (*) may not be used as a field width or precision.
145.It
146A byte count or field precision
147.Em is
148required for each ``s'' conversion
149character (unlike the
150.Xr fprintf 3
151default which prints the entire string if the precision is unspecified).
152.It
153The conversion characters ``h'', ``l'', ``n'', ``p'' and ``q'' are
154not supported.
155.It
156The single character escape sequences
157described in the C standard are supported:
158.Bd -ragged -offset indent -compact
159.Bl -column <alert_character>
160.It NUL	\e0
161.It <alert character>	\ea
162.It <backspace>	\eb
163.It <form-feed>	\ef
164.It <newline>	\en
165.It <carriage return>	\er
166.It <tab>	\et
167.It <vertical tab>	\ev
168.El
169.Ed
170.El
171.Pp
172Hexdump also supports the the following additional conversion strings:
173.Bl -tag -width Fl
174.It Cm \&_a Ns Op Cm dox
175Display the input offset, cumulative across input files, of the
176next byte to be displayed.
177The appended characters
178.Cm d ,
179.Cm o ,
180and
181.Cm x
182specify the display base
183as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively.
184.It Cm \&_A Ns Op Cm dox
185Identical to the
186.Cm \&_a
187conversion string except that it is only performed
188once, when all of the input data has been processed.
189.It Cm \&_c
190Output characters in the default character set.
191Nonprinting characters are displayed in three character, zero-padded
192octal, except for those representable by standard escape notation
193(see above),
194which are displayed as two character strings.
195.It Cm _p
196Output characters in the default character set.
197Nonprinting characters are displayed as a single
198.Dq Cm \&. .
199.It Cm _u
200Output US ASCII characters, with the exception that control characters are
201displayed using the following, lower-case, names.
202Characters greater than 0xff, hexadecimal, are displayed as hexadecimal
203strings.
204.Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
205.It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
206.It \&006\ ack\t007\ bel\t008\ bs\t009\ ht\t00A\ lf\t00B\ vt
207.It \&00C\ ff\t00D\ cr\t00E\ so\t00F\ si\t010\ dle\t011\ dc1
208.It \&012\ dc2\t013\ dc3\t014\ dc4\t015\ nak\t016\ syn\t017\ etb
209.It \&018\ can\t019\ em\t01A\ sub\t01B\ esc\t01C\ fs\t01D\ gs
210.It \&01E\ rs\t01F\ us\t0FF\ del
211.El
212.El
213.Pp
214The default and supported byte counts for the conversion characters
215are as follows:
216.Bl -tag -width  "Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc" -offset indent
217.It Li \&%_c , \&%_p , \&%_u , \&%c
218One byte counts only.
219.It Xo
220.Li \&%d , \&%i , \&%o ,
221.Li \&%u , \&%X , \&%x
222.Xc
223Four byte default, one, two and four byte counts supported.
224.It Xo
225.Li \&%E , \&%e , \&%f ,
226.Li \&%G , \&%g
227.Xc
228Eight byte default, four byte counts supported.
229.El
230.Pp
231The amount of data interpreted by each format string is the sum of the
232data required by each format unit, which is the iteration count times the
233byte count, or the iteration count times the number of bytes required by
234the format if the byte count is not specified.
235.Pp
236The input is manipulated in ``blocks'', where a block is defined as the
237largest amount of data specified by any format string.
238Format strings interpreting less than an input block's worth of data,
239whose last format unit both interprets some number of bytes and does
240not have a specified iteration count, have the the interation count
241incremented until the entire input block has been processed or there
242is not enough data remaining in the block to satisfy the format string.
243.Pp
244If, either as a result of user specification or hexdump modifying
245the iteration count as described above, an iteration count is
246greater than one, no trailing whitespace characters are output
247during the last iteration.
248.Pp
249It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple conversion
250characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion characters
251or strings is
252.Cm \&_a
253or
254.Cm \&_A .
255.Pp
256If, as a result of the specification of the
257.Fl n
258option or end-of-file being reached, input data only partially
259satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded sufficiently
260to display all available data (i.e. any format units overlapping the
261end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
262.Pp
263Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
264number of spaces.
265An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of spaces
266output by an
267.Cm s
268conversion character with the same field width
269and precision as the original conversion character or conversion
270string but with any
271.Dq Li \&+ ,
272.Dq \&\ \& ,
273.Dq Li \&#
274conversion flag characters
275removed, and referencing a NULL string.
276.Pp
277If no format strings are specified, the default display is equivalent
278to specifying the
279.Fl x
280option.
281.Pp
282.Nm hexdump
283exits 0 on success and >0 if an error occurred.
284.Sh EXAMPLES
285Display the input in perusal format:
286.Bd -literal -offset indent
287"%06.6_ao "  12/1 "%3_u "
288"\et\et" "%_p "
289"\en"
290.Ed
291.Pp
292Implement the \-x option:
293.Bd -literal -offset indent
294"%07.7_Ax\en"
295"%07.7_ax  " 8/2 "%04x " "\en"
296.Ed
297.Sh SEE ALSO
298.Xr adb 1
299