xref: /openbsd/usr.bin/hexdump/hexdump.1 (revision 898184e3)
1.\"	$OpenBSD: hexdump.1,v 1.24 2011/05/06 18:11:43 otto Exp $
2.\"	$NetBSD: hexdump.1,v 1.14 2001/12/07 14:46:24 bjh21 Exp $
3.\"
4.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
5.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
6.\"
7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
9.\" are met:
10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
11.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
13.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
14.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
15.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
16.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
17.\"    without specific prior written permission.
18.\"
19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
29.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
30.\"
31.\"	from: @(#)hexdump.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/18/94
32.\"
33.Dd $Mdocdate: May 6 2011 $
34.Dt HEXDUMP 1
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm hexdump
38.Nd ascii, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.Nm hexdump
41.Bk -words
42.Op Fl bCcdovx
43.Op Fl e Ar format_string
44.Op Fl f Ar format_file
45.Op Fl n Ar length
46.Op Fl s Ar offset
47.Op Ar
48.Ek
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Nm
52utility is a filter which displays the specified files, or
53the standard input, if no files are specified, in a user-specified
54format.
55.Pp
56The options are as follows:
57.Bl -tag -width Ds
58.It Fl b
59.Em One-byte octal display .
60Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
61space-separated, three column, zero-filled, bytes of input data,
62in octal, per line.
63.It Fl C
64.Em Canonical hex+ASCII display .
65Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
66space-separated, two column, hexadecimal bytes, followed by the
67same sixteen bytes in %_p format enclosed in ``|'' characters.
68.It Fl c
69.Em One-byte character display .
70Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
71space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input
72data per line.
73.It Fl d
74.Em Two-byte decimal display .
75Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
76space-separated, five column, zero-filled, two-byte units
77of input data, in unsigned decimal, per line.
78.It Fl e Ar format_string
79Specify a format string to be used for displaying data.
80.It Fl f Ar format_file
81Specify a file that contains one or more newline separated format strings.
82Empty lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a hash mark
83.Pq Ql #
84are ignored.
85.It Fl n Ar length
86Interpret only
87.Ar length
88bytes of input.
89By default,
90.Ar length
91is interpreted as a decimal number.
92With a leading
93.Cm 0x
94or
95.Cm 0X ,
96.Ar length
97is interpreted as a hexadecimal number,
98otherwise, with a leading
99.Cm 0 ,
100.Ar length
101is interpreted as an octal number.
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.Pq Ql * .
148.It Fl x
149.Em Two-byte hexadecimal display .
150Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight, space
151separated, four column, zero-filled, two-byte quantities of input
152data, in hexadecimal, per line.
153.El
154.Pp
155For each input file,
156.Nm
157sequentially copies the input to standard output, transforming the
158data according to the format strings specified by the
159.Fl e
160and
161.Fl f
162options, in the order that they were specified.
163.Ss Formats
164A format string contains any number of format units, separated by
165whitespace.
166A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte
167count, and a format.
168.Pp
169The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to
170one.
171Each format is applied iteration count times.
172.Pp
173The byte count is an optional positive integer.
174If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by
175each iteration of the format.
176.Pp
177If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash
178.Pq Sq /
179must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count
180to disambiguate them.
181Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
182.Pp
183The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote
184.Pq \&"\& \&"
185marks
186(the quote mark is a special character in many shell programs,
187and may have to be escaped from the shell).
188It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see
189.Xr fprintf 3 ) ,
190with the
191following exceptions:
192.Bl -bullet -offset indent
193.It
194An asterisk (*) may not be used as a field width or precision.
195.It
196A byte count or field precision
197.Em is
198required for each
199.Sq s
200conversion character (unlike the
201.Xr fprintf 3
202default which prints the entire string if the precision is unspecified).
203.It
204The conversion characters
205.Sq h ,
206.Sq l ,
207.Sq n ,
208.Sq p ,
209and
210.Sq q
211are not supported.
212.It
213The single character escape sequences
214described in the C standard are supported:
215.Pp
216.Bl -tag -width "Xalert characterXXX" -offset indent -compact
217.It NUL
218\e0
219.It Aq alert character
220\ea
221.It Aq backspace
222\eb
223.It Aq form-feed
224\ef
225.It Aq newline
226\en
227.It Aq carriage return
228\er
229.It Aq tab
230\et
231.It Aq vertical tab
232\ev
233.El
234.El
235.Pp
236.Nm
237also supports the following additional conversion strings:
238.Bl -tag -width Fl
239.It Cm \&_a Ns Op Cm dox
240Display the input offset, cumulative across input files, of the
241next byte to be displayed.
242The appended characters
243.Cm d ,
244.Cm o ,
245and
246.Cm x
247specify the display base
248as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively.
249.It Cm \&_A Ns Op Cm dox
250Identical to the
251.Cm \&_a
252conversion string except that it is only performed
253once, when all of the input data has been processed.
254.It Cm \&_c
255Output characters in the default character set.
256Nonprinting characters are displayed in three character, zero-padded
257octal, except for those representable by standard escape notation
258(see above),
259which are displayed as two character strings.
260.It Cm _p
261Output characters in the default character set.
262Nonprinting characters are displayed as a single dot
263.Ql \&. .
264.It Cm _u
265Output US ASCII characters, with the exception that control characters are
266displayed using the following, lower-case, names.
267Other non-printable characters are displayed as hexadecimal strings.
268.Bd -literal -offset 3n
269000 nul  001 soh  002 stx  003 etx  004 eot  005 enq
270006 ack  007 bel  008 bs   009 ht   00A lf   00B vt
27100C ff   00D cr   00E so   00F si   010 dle  011 dc1
272012 dc2  013 dc3  014 dc4  015 nak  016 syn  017 etb
273018 can  019 em   01A sub  01B esc  01C fs   01D gs
27401E rs   01F us   07F del
275.Ed
276.El
277.Pp
278The default and supported byte counts for the conversion characters
279are as follows:
280.Bl -tag -width  "Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc" -offset indent
281.It Li \&%_c , \&%_p , \&%_u , \&%c
282One byte counts only.
283.It Xo
284.Li \&%d , \&%i , \&%o ,
285.Li \&%u , \&%X , \&%x
286.Xc
287Four byte default, one, two, four and eight byte counts supported.
288.It Xo
289.Li \&%E , \&%e , \&%f ,
290.Li \&%G , \&%g
291.Xc
292Eight byte default, four byte counts supported.
293.El
294.Pp
295The amount of data interpreted by each format string is the sum of the
296data required by each format unit, which is the iteration count times the
297byte count, or the iteration count times the number of bytes required by
298the format if the byte count is not specified.
299.Pp
300The input is manipulated in
301.Dq blocks ,
302where a block is defined as the
303largest amount of data specified by any format string.
304Format strings interpreting less than an input block's worth of data,
305whose last format unit both interprets some number of bytes and does
306not have a specified iteration count, have the iteration count
307incremented until the entire input block has been processed or there
308is not enough data remaining in the block to satisfy the format string.
309.Pp
310If, either as a result of user specification or hexdump modifying
311the iteration count as described above, an iteration count is
312greater than one, no trailing whitespace characters are output
313during the last iteration.
314.Pp
315It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple conversion
316characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion characters
317or strings is
318.Cm \&_a
319or
320.Cm \&_A .
321.Pp
322If, as a result of the specification of the
323.Fl n
324option or end-of-file being reached, input data only partially
325satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded sufficiently
326to display all available data (i.e., any format units overlapping the
327end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
328.Pp
329Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
330number of spaces.
331An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of spaces
332output by an
333.Cm s
334conversion character with the same field width
335and precision as the original conversion character or conversion
336string but with any
337.Ql + ,
338.Ql \&\ \& ,
339.Ql #
340conversion flag characters
341removed, and referencing a NULL string.
342.Pp
343If no format strings are specified, the default display is equivalent
344to specifying the
345.Fl x
346option.
347.Sh EXIT STATUS
348.Ex -std hexdump
349.Sh EXAMPLES
350Display characters using a fieldwidth of 4,
351and using special names for control characters:
352.Pp
353.Dl $ hexdump -e '"%4_u"' file
354.Pp
355An example file for use with the
356.Fl f
357option, to display the input in perusal format:
358.Bd -literal -offset indent
359"%06.6_ao "  12/1 "%3_u "
360"\et\et" "%_p "
361"\en"
362.Ed
363.Pp
364An example file for use with the
365.Fl f
366option, which implements the equivalent of the
367.Fl x
368option:
369.Bd -literal -offset indent
370"%07.7_Ax\en"
371"%07.7_ax " 8/2 "   %04x " "\en"
372.Ed
373.Sh SEE ALSO
374.Xr od 1
375