1HEXEDIT(1) General Commands Manual HEXEDIT(1)
2
6 hexedit - view and edit files in hexadecimal or in ASCII
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9 hexedit [-s | --sector] [-m | --maximize] [-h | --help] [filename]
10
12 hexedit shows a file both in ASCII and in hexadecimal. The file can be
13 a device as the file is read a piece at a time. You can modify the file
14 and search through it.
15
17 -s, --sector
18 Format the display to have entire sectors.
19 -m, --maximize
21 Try to maximize the display.
22 -h, --help
24 Show the usage.
25
27 Moving
28 <, > : go to start/end of the file
29 Right: next character
30 Left: previous character
31 Down: next line
32 Up: previous line
33 Home: beginning of line
34 End: end of line
35 PUp: page forward
36 PDown: page backward
37 Miscellaneous
39 F2: save
40 F3: load file
41 F1: help
42 Ctrl-L: redraw
43 Ctrl-Z: suspend
44 Ctrl-X: save and exit
45 Ctrl-C: exit without saving
46 Tab: toggle hex/ascii
48 Return: go to
49 Backspace: undo previous character
50 Ctrl-U: undo all
51 Ctrl-S: search forward
52 Ctrl-R: search backward
53 Cut&Paste
55 Ctrl-Space: set mark
56 Esc-W: copy
57 Ctrl-Y: paste
58 Esc-Y: paste into a file
59 Esc-I: fill
60
62 o Right-Arrow, Left-Arrow, Down-Arrow, Up-Arrow - move the cursor.
63 o Ctrl+F, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+P - move the cursor.
64 o Ctrl+Right-Arrow, Ctrl+Left-Arrow, Ctrl+Down-Arrow, Ctrl+Up-Arrow -
65 move n times the cursor.
66 o Esc+Right-Arrow, Esc+Left-Arrow, Esc+Down-Arrow, Esc+Up-Arrow - move
67 n times the cursor.
68 o Esc+F, Esc+B, Esc+N, Esc+P - move n times the cursor.
69 o Home, Ctrl+A - go the beginning of the line.
70 o End, Ctrl+E - go to the end of the line.
71 o Page up, Esc+V, F5 - go up in the file by one page.
72 o Page down, Ctrl+V, F6 - go down in the file by one page.
73 o <, Esc+<, Esc+Home - go to the beginning of the file.
74 o >, Esc+>, Esc+End - go to the end of the file (for regular files that
75 have a size).
76 o Ctrl+Z - suspend hexedit.
77 o Ctrl+U, Ctrl+_, Ctrl+/ - undo all (forget the modifications).
78 o Ctrl+Q - read next input character and insert it (this is useful for
79 inserting control characters and bound keys).
80 o Tab, Ctrl+T - toggle between ASCII and hexadecimal.
81 o /, Ctrl+S - search forward (in ASCII or in hexadecimal, use TAB to
82 change).
83 o Ctrl+R - search backward.
84 o Ctrl+G, F4 - go to a position in the file.
85 o Return - go to a sector in the file if --sector is used, otherwise go
86 to a position in the file.
87 o Esc+L - display the page starting at the current cursor position.
88 o F2, Ctrl+W - save the modifications.
89 o F1, Esc+H - help (show the man page).
90 o Ctrl+O, F3 - open another file
91 o Ctrl+L - redisplay (refresh) the display (usefull when your terminal
92 screws up).
93 o Backspace, Ctrl+H - undo the modifications made on the previous byte.
94 o Esc+Ctrl+H - undo the modifications made on the previous bytes.
95 o Ctrl+Space, F9 - set mark where cursor is.
96 o Esc+W, Delete, F7 - copy selected region.
97 o Ctrl+Y, Insert, F8 - paste (yank) previously copied region.
98 o Esc+Y, F11 - save previously copied region to a file.
99 o Esc+I, F12 - fill the selection with a string
100 o Esc+T - truncate the file at the current location
101 o Ctrl+C - unconditional quit (without saving).
102 o F10, Ctrl+X - quit.
103 For the Esc commands, it sometimes works to use Alt instead of Esc.
105 Funny things here (especially for froggies :) egrave = Alt+H , ccedilla
106 = Alt+G, Alt+Y = ugrave.
107 Modeline
109 At the bottom of the display you have the modeline (copied from emacs).
110 As in emacs, you have the indications --, ** and %% meaning unmodified,
111 modified and read-only. Then you have the name of the file you're cur‐
112 rently editing. Next to it is the current position of the cursor in the
113 file followed by the total file size. The total file size isn't quite
114 correct for devices.
115 While in --sector mode, it shows the sector the cursor is in.
116 Editing
118 You can edit in ASCII or in hexadecimal. You can switch between the two
119 with Tab. When the file is read-only, you can't edit it. When trying to
120 edit a read-only file, a message (``File is read-only'') tells you it
121 is non-writable.
122 The modifications are shown in bold until they are saved. The modeline
123 indicates whether you have modified the file or not.
124 When editing in hexadecimal, only 0,1,...,9, a,b,...,f, A,B,...F are
125 legal. Other keys are unbound. The first time you hit an unbound key,
126 the help pops up. It won't pop again unless you call the help directly
127 (with F1).
128 When editing in ascii, you can find it difficult to enter characters
129 like / which are bound to a function. The solution is to use the quoted
130 insert function Ctrl+Q, the key after the quoted insert function is not
131 processed by hexedit (like emacs' quoted-insert, or like the \ charac‐
132 ter in C).
133 Searching
135 You can search for a string in ASCII or in hexadecimal. You can switch
136 between the two with Tab. If the string is found, the cursor is moved
137 to the beginning of the matching location. If the search failed, a mes‐
138 sage (``not found'') tells you so. You can cancel the search by press‐
139 ing a key.
140 The search in hexadecimal is a bit confusing. You must give a hexadeci‐
141 mal string with an even number of characters. The search can then be
142 done byte by byte. If you want to search a long number (eg: a 32 bit
143 number), you must know the internal representation of that number (lit‐
144 tle/big endian problem) and give it the way it is in memory. For exam‐
145 ple, on an Intel processor (little endian), you must swap every bytes:
146 0x12345678 is written 0x78563412 in memory and that's the string you
147 must give to the search engine.
148 Before searching you are asked if you want to save the changes, if the
149 file is edited.
150 For more sophisticated search, see Volker Schatz's patch at
152 <http://www.volkerschatz.com/unix/homebrew.html#hexedit>.
153 Selecting, copying, pasting, filling
155 First, select the part of the buffer you want to copy: start setting
156 the mark where you want. Then go to the end of the area you want to
157 copy (you can use the go to function and the search functions). Then
158 copy it. You can then paste the copied area in the current file or in
159 another file.
160 You can also fill the selected area with a string or a character: start
162 choosing the block you want to fill in (set mark then move to the end
163 of the block), and call the fill function (F12). hexedit ask you the
164 string you want to fill the block with.
165 The code is not tuned for huge filling as it keeps the modifications in
166 memory until you save them. That's why hexedit will warn you if you try
167 to fill in a big block.
168 When the mark is set, the selection is shown in reverse mode.
170 Be aware that the copied area contains the modifications done at the
171 time of the copy. But if you undo the modifications, it does not change
172 the content of the copy buffer. It seems obvious but it's worth saying.
173 Scrolling
175 The scrolling is different whether you are in --sector mode or not. In
176 normal mode, the scrolling is line by line. In sector mode, the
177 scrolling is sector by sector. In both modes, you can force the display
178 to start at a given position using Esc+L.
179
181 od(1), hdump(1), hexdump(1), bpe(1), hexed(1), beav(1).
182
184 Pixel (Pascal Rigaux) <pixel@rigaux.org>,
185 Home page is <http://rigaux.org/>.
186
188 hexedit is Open Source; anyone may redistribute copies of hexedit to
189 anyone under the terms stated in the GNU General Public License.
190 You can find hexedit at
192 <http://rigaux.org/hexedit-1.2.12.src.tgz> and
193 <http://rigaux.org/hexedit-1.2.12.bin.i386.dynamic.tgz>.
194
196 Anything you think could be nice...
197
199 There are problems with the curses library given with Redhat 5.0 that
200 make hexedit think the terminal is huge. The result is that hexedit is
201 not usable.
202 The shortcuts work on some machines, and not on others. That's why
204 there are many shortcuts for each function. The Ctrl+Arrows and the
205 Alt+. do not work work as they should most of the time. On SUNs, you
206 must do Ctrl+V-Ctrl+V instead of Ctrl+V (!); and the Alt key is the
207 diamond one.
208 While searching, it could be interesting to know which position the
210 search has reached. It's always nice to see something moving to help
211 waiting.
212 The hexadecimal search could be able to search modulo 4 bits instead of
214 8 bits. Another feature could be to complete padd odd length hexadeci‐
215 mal searches with zeros.
216
218 I have an example where the display is completly screwed up. It seems
219 to be a bug in ncurses (or maybe in xterm and rxvt)?? Don't know if
220 it's me using ncurses badly or not... It seems to happen when hexedit
221 leaves only one space at the end of the lines... If anyone has a (or
222 the) solution, please tell me!
223 If you have any problem with the program (even a small one), please do
225 report it to me. Remarks of any kind are also welcome.
226 12 July 1998 HEXEDIT(1)