hexdump examples

The hexdump man page is a bit frustrating, but some better help can be found.

Two tips for reading the man page:

Here are a few more examples to jump-start new users…

The input file (hexdump.txt)

The correction for the aberration of light is said,
on high authority, not to be perfect even in that most perfect organ, the
eye.

Decimal byte offsets, 16 bytes per line

  1. Print the current decimal byte offset padded to 10 digits with 0's, then print the | pipe character. Next take 16 items each 1 byte in size and print each item as a printing character. Finally print another | pipe character followed by a newline.
hexdump -v -e '"%010_ad  |" 16/1 "%_p" "|\n"' hexdump.txt
0000000000  |The correction f|
0000000016  |or the aberratio|
0000000032  |n of light is sa|
0000000048  |id,.on high auth|
0000000064  |ority, not to be|
0000000080  | perfect even in|
0000000096  | that most perfe|
0000000112  |ct organ, the.ey|
0000000128  |e..|

The same thing, broken up into two expressions

  1. Take 1 item of 16 bytes and print the current decimal byte offset padded to 10 digits with 0's, then print the | pipe character.
  2. Also take 16 items each 1 byte in size and print each item as a printing character. Then print a | pipe character followed by a newline.

Note that the starting byte offset only changes after both expressions have been evaluated, so the 16 printing characters still start at offset 0.

hexdump -v -e '/16 "%010_ad  |"' -e '16/1 "%_p" "|\n"' hexdump.txt
0000000000  |The correction f|
0000000016  |or the aberratio|
0000000032  |n of light is sa|
0000000048  |id,.on high auth|
0000000064  |ority, not to be|
0000000080  | perfect even in|
0000000096  | that most perfe|
0000000112  |ct organ, the.ey|
0000000128  |e..|

The same thing once more, broken up into three expressions

  1. Take 1 item of 16 bytes and print the current decimal byte offset padded to 10 digits with 0's, then print the | pipe character.
  2. Also take 16 items each 1 byte in size and print each item as a printing character.
  3. Also take 1 item of 16 bytes and print a | pipe character followed by a newline.
hexdump -v -e '/16 "%010_ad  |"' -e '/1 "%_p"' -e '/16 "|\n"' hexdump.txt
0000000000  |The correction f|
0000000016  |or the aberratio|
0000000032  |n of light is sa|
0000000048  |id,.on high auth|
0000000064  |ority, not to be|
0000000080  | perfect even in|
0000000096  | that most perfe|
0000000112  |ct organ, the.ey|
0000000128  |e..|

Again as three expressions, but using only one iteration/byte count

hexdump -v -e '/16 "%010_ad  |"' -e '"%_p"' -e '"|\n"' hexdump.txt
hexdump -v -e '"%010_ad  |"' -e '16/1 "%_p"' -e '"|\n"' hexdump.txt
hexdump -v -e '"%010_ad  |"' -e '"%_p"' -e '/16 "|\n"' hexdump.txt

All three of these are identical because of the way hexdump decides the size of the block (term from the man page) to use when reading through the file.

Offset printed for each byte, left-aligned characters, 7 bytes per line

hexdump -v -e '7/1 "%5_ad:%-5_c" "\n"' hexdump.txt
    0:T        1:h        2:e        3:         4:c        5:o        6:r    
    7:r        8:e        9:c       10:t       11:i       12:o       13:n    
   14:        15:f       16:o       17:r       18:        19:t       20:h    
   21:e       22:        23:a       24:b       25:e       26:r       27:r    
   28:a       29:t       30:i       31:o       32:n       33:        34:o    
   35:f       36:        37:l       38:i       39:g       40:h       41:t    
   42:        43:i       44:s       45:        46:s       47:a       48:i    
   49:d       50:,       51:\n      52:o       53:n       54:        55:h    
   56:i       57:g       58:h       59:        60:a       61:u       62:t    
   63:h       64:o       65:r       66:i       67:t       68:y       69:,    
   70:        71:n       72:o       73:t       74:        75:t       76:o    
   77:        78:b       79:e       80:        81:p       82:e       83:r    
   84:f       85:e       86:c       87:t       88:        89:e       90:v    
   91:e       92:n       93:        94:i       95:n       96:        97:t    
   98:h       99:a      100:t      101:       102:m      103:o      104:s    
  105:t      106:       107:p      108:e      109:r      110:f      111:e    
  112:c      113:t      114:       115:o      116:r      117:g      118:a    
  119:n      120:,      121:       122:t      123:h      124:e      125:\n   
  126:e      127:y      128:e      129:.      130:\n        :          :

The effect of -v

With -v

( echo "abcdefghijklmno"; echo "abcdefghijklmno" ) | hexdump -v -C
00000000  61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68  69 6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f 0a  |abcdefghijklmno.|
00000010  61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68  69 6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f 0a  |abcdefghijklmno.|
00000020

Without -v

( echo "abcdefghijklmno"; echo "abcdefghijklmno" ) | hexdump -C
00000000  61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68  69 6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f 0a  |abcdefghijklmno.|
*
00000020

One hexdump vs. od example

hexdump  -e ' "%07_ad" 16/1 "  %2_c" "\n"' hexdump.txt
0000000   T   h   e       c   o   r   r   e   c   t   i   o   n       f
0000016   o   r       t   h   e       a   b   e   r   r   a   t   i   o
0000032   n       o   f       l   i   g   h   t       i   s       s   a
0000048   i   d   ,  \n   o   n       h   i   g   h       a   u   t   h
0000064   o   r   i   t   y   ,       n   o   t       t   o       b   e
0000080       p   e   r   f   e   c   t       e   v   e   n       i   n
0000096       t   h   a   t       m   o   s   t       p   e   r   f   e
0000112   c   t       o   r   g   a   n   ,       t   h   e  \n   e   y
0000128   e   .  \n
od -Ad -w16 -tc hexdump.txt
0000000   T   h   e       c   o   r   r   e   c   t   i   o   n       f
0000016   o   r       t   h   e       a   b   e   r   r   a   t   i   o
0000032   n       o   f       l   i   g   h   t       i   s       s   a
0000048   i   d   ,  \n   o   n       h   i   g   h       a   u   t   h
0000064   o   r   i   t   y   ,       n   o   t       t   o       b   e
0000080       p   e   r   f   e   c   t       e   v   e   n       i   n
0000096       t   h   a   t       m   o   s   t       p   e   r   f   e
0000112   c   t       o   r   g   a   n   ,       t   h   e  \n   e   y
0000128   e   .  \n
0000131

Links

Manual on How to Use the Hexdump Unix Utility
More hexdump explanation and examples.
Debian hexdump man page
The Debian version of the hexdump man page has a few additions compared to the FreeBSD version.
FreeBSD hexdump man page
The upstream version of the hexdump man page.
od invocation
The od documentation from the GNU coreutils manual.
od man page
The Debian od man page.

Updates

2012 Feb 04 more explanation, block size examples, od example, links section
2010 Dec 01 single-expression example and some rewording
2010 Nov 13 Fixed more missing \n escapes, hopefully fixed the root problem
2010 Oct 06 Fixed missing \n newline escapes
2010 Sep 13 Initial post