xref: /openbsd/usr.bin/hexdump/hexdump.1 (revision d36ddc7d)
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33.\"	from: @(#)hexdump.1	5.12 (Berkeley) 7/27/91
34.\"
35.Dd July 27, 1991
36.Dt HEXDUMP 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm hexdump
40.Nd ascii, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm hexdump
43.Op Fl bcdovx
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.Sh DESCRIPTION
52The hexdump utility 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 Fl
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 One-byte character display .
65Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen
66space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input
67data per line.
68.It Fl d
69.Em Two-byte decimal display.
70Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
71space-separated, five column, zero-filled, two-byte units
72of input data, in unsigned decimal, per line.
73.It Fl e Ar format_string
74Specify a format string to be used for displaying data.
75.It Fl f Ar format_file
76Specify a file that contains one or more newline separated format strings.
77Empty lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a hash mark
78.Pf ( Cm \&# )
79are ignored.
80.It Fl n Ar length
81Interpret only
82.Ar length
83bytes of input.
84.It Fl o
85.Em Two-byte octal display.
86Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight
87space-separated, six column, zero-filled, two byte quantities of
88input data, in octal, per line.
89.It Fl s Ar offset
90Skip
91.Ar offset
92bytes from the beginning of the input.
93By default,
94.Ar offset
95is interpreted as a decimal number.
96With a leading
97.Cm 0x
98or
99.Cm 0X ,
100.Ar offset
101is interpreted as a hexadecimal number,
102otherwise, with a leading
103.Cm 0 ,
104.Ar offset
105is interpreted as an octal number.
106Appending the character
107.Cm b ,
108.Cm k ,
109or
110.Cm m
111to
112.Ar offset
113causes it to be interpreted as a multiple of
114.Li 512 ,
115.Li 1024 ,
116or
117.Li 1048576 ,
118respectively.
119.It Fl v
120The
121.Fl v
122option causes hexdump to display all input data.
123Without the
124.Fl v
125option, any number of groups of output lines, which would be
126identical to the immediately preceding group of output lines (except
127for the input offsets), are replaced with a line comprised of a
128single asterisk.
129.It Fl x
130.Em Two-byte hexadecimal display.
131Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by eight, space
132separated, four column, zero-filled, two-byte quantities of input
133data, in hexadecimal, per line.
134.El
135.Pp
136For each input file,
137.Nm hexdump
138sequentially copies the input to standard output, transforming the
139data according to the format strings specified by the
140.Fl e
141and
142.Fl f
143options, in the order that they were specified.
144.Ss Formats
145A format string contains any number of format units, separated by
146whitespace.
147A format unit contains up to three items: an iteration count, a byte
148count, and a format.
149.Pp
150The iteration count is an optional positive integer, which defaults to
151one.
152Each format is applied iteration count times.
153.Pp
154The byte count is an optional positive integer.
155If specified it defines the number of bytes to be interpreted by
156each iteration of the format.
157.Pp
158If an iteration count and/or a byte count is specified, a single slash
159must be placed after the iteration count and/or before the byte count
160to disambiguate them.
161Any whitespace before or after the slash is ignored.
162.Pp
163The format is required and must be surrounded by double quote
164(" ") marks.
165It is interpreted as a fprintf-style format string (see
166.Xr fprintf 3 ) ,
167with the
168following exceptions:
169.Bl -bullet -offset indent
170.It
171An asterisk (*) may not be used as a field width or precision.
172.It
173A byte count or field precision
174.Em is
175required for each ``s'' conversion
176character (unlike the
177.Xr fprintf 3
178default which prints the entire string if the precision is unspecified).
179.It
180The conversion characters ``h'', ``n'', and ``p'' are not
181supported.
182.It
183The single character escape sequences
184described in the C standard are supported:
185.Bd -ragged -offset indent -compact
186.Bl -column <alert_character>
187.It NUL	\e0
188.It <alert character>	\ea
189.It <backspace>	\eb
190.It <form-feed>	\ef
191.It <newline>	\en
192.It <carriage return>	\er
193.It <tab>	\et
194.It <vertical tab>	\ev
195.El
196.Ed
197.El
198.Pp
199Hexdump also supports the following additional conversion strings:
200.Bl -tag -width Fl
201.It Cm \&_a Ns Op Cm dox
202Display the input offset, cumulative across input files, of the
203next byte to be displayed.
204The appended characters
205.Cm d ,
206.Cm o ,
207and
208.Cm x
209specify the display base
210as decimal, octal or hexadecimal respectively.
211.It Cm \&_A Ns Op Cm dox
212Identical to the
213.Cm \&_a
214conversion string except that it is only performed
215once, when all of the input data has been processed.
216.It Cm \&_c
217Output characters in the default character set.
218Nonprinting characters are displayed in three character, zero-padded
219octal, except for those representable by standard escape notation
220(see above),
221which are displayed as two character strings.
222.It Cm _p
223Output characters in the default character set.
224Nonprinting characters are displayed as a single
225.Dq Cm \&. .
226.It Cm _u
227Output US ASCII characters, with the exception that control characters are
228displayed using the following, lower-case, names.
229Characters greater than 0xff, hexadecimal, are displayed as hexadecimal
230strings.
231.Bl -column \&000_nu \&001_so \&002_st \&003_et \&004_eo
232.It \&000\ nul\t001\ soh\t002\ stx\t003\ etx\t004\ eot\t005\ enq
233.It \&006\ ack\t007\ bel\t008\ bs\t009\ ht\t00A\ lf\t00B\ vt
234.It \&00C\ ff\t00D\ cr\t00E\ so\t00F\ si\t010\ dle\t011\ dc1
235.It \&012\ dc2\t013\ dc3\t014\ dc4\t015\ nak\t016\ syn\t017\ etb
236.It \&018\ can\t019\ em\t01A\ sub\t01B\ esc\t01C\ fs\t01D\ gs
237.It \&01E\ rs\t01F\ us\t0FF\ del
238.El
239.El
240.Pp
241The default and supported byte counts for the conversion characters
242are as follows:
243.Bl -tag -width  "Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc,_Xc" -offset indent
244.It Li \&%_c , \&%_p , \&%_u , \&%c
245One byte counts only.
246.It Xo
247.Li \&%d , \&%i , \&%o ,
248.Li \&%u , \&%X , \&%x
249.Xc
250Four byte default, one and two byte counts supported.
251.It Xo
252.Li \&%E , \&%e , \&%f ,
253.Li \&%G , \&%g
254.Xc
255Eight byte default, four byte counts supported.
256.El
257.Pp
258The amount of data interpreted by each format string is the sum of the
259data required by each format unit, which is the iteration count times the
260byte count, or the iteration count times the number of bytes required by
261the format if the byte count is not specified.
262.Pp
263The input is manipulated in ``blocks'', where a block is defined as the
264largest amount of data specified by any format string.
265Format strings interpreting less than an input block's worth of data,
266whose last format unit both interprets some number of bytes and does
267not have a specified iteration count, have the iteration count
268incremented until the entire input block has been processed or there
269is not enough data remaining in the block to satisfy the format string.
270.Pp
271If, either as a result of user specification or hexdump modifying
272the iteration count as described above, an iteration count is
273greater than one, no trailing whitespace characters are output
274during the last iteration.
275.Pp
276It is an error to specify a byte count as well as multiple conversion
277characters or strings unless all but one of the conversion characters
278or strings is
279.Cm \&_a
280or
281.Cm \&_A .
282.Pp
283If, as a result of the specification of the
284.Fl n
285option or end-of-file being reached, input data only partially
286satisfies a format string, the input block is zero-padded sufficiently
287to display all available data (i.e. any format units overlapping the
288end of data will display some number of the zero bytes).
289.Pp
290Further output by such format strings is replaced by an equivalent
291number of spaces.
292An equivalent number of spaces is defined as the number of spaces
293output by an
294.Cm s
295conversion character with the same field width
296and precision as the original conversion character or conversion
297string but with any
298.Dq Li \&+ ,
299.Dq \&\ \& ,
300.Dq Li \&#
301conversion flag characters
302removed, and referencing a NULL string.
303.Pp
304If no format strings are specified, the default display is equivalent
305to specifying the
306.Fl x
307option.
308.Pp
309.Nm hexdump
310exits 0 on success and >0 if an error occurred.
311.Sh EXAMPLES
312Display the input in perusal format:
313.Bd -literal -offset indent
314"%06.6_ao "  12/1 "%3_u "
315"\et\et" "%_p "
316"\en"
317.Ed
318.Pp
319Implement the \-x option:
320.Bd -literal -offset indent
321"%07.7_Ax\en"
322"%07.7_ax  " 8/2 "%04x " "\en"
323.Ed
324.Sh STANDARDS
325The
326.Nm hexdump
327utility is expected to be
328.St -p1003.2
329compatible.
330