hex2bin(1)hex2bin(1)NAMEhex2bin - Create a binary from its hexdump.
SYNOPSIShex2bin [-q|-f|-v|-I|-C] [[-i] inputfile] [-o outputfile]
DESCRIPTIONhex2bin is the counterpart to hexdump.
Together with hexdump it can be used for editing binary files: First
you hexdump the file, then you modify the dump-file in an editor, then
you use hex2bin to produce the modified binary file. Because there are
so many versions of hexdump out there, which have so many different
output-formats, you had better use that one distributed together with
hex2bin.
Also, you can use this program to produce binary data to send to a
device or to another program. Use option -I for this task.
-i inputfile || inputfile
At most one inputfile can be given. If none is, then stdin will be
used for input. (Giving more inputfiles would make no sense.)
-o outputfile
At most one outputfile can be given. If none is, then stdout will
be used for output. On systems where textfiles and binaries are
treated differently (such as MS-DOS) an outputfile should be
given, for output-redirection may be flakey with binary data.
-q (quiet) hush up warnings. Errors are still printed.
-f (flush) flush output after each chunk of input.
-v (verbose) print more infos.
-I (interactive) Imply -f and -v and prompt current offset.
-C (compat) accept BSD's "hexdump -C" format (don't require colons
after offset)
INPUTFILE-SYNTAX
Inputlines usually consist of an address-field terminated by a colon
(:) followed by byte-data or strings. Anything after a pipe-character
(|) is ignored (Comments).
Each, any or all of these parts can be omitted, unless option -C is
given. (With -C, an offset must always be specified before byte data,
but still not necessarily before strings.)
A special case are repetition-lines, which start with an asterisk (*)
and may be followed by a decimal(base 10) number.
The last line consists of a semicolon (;) optionally preceded by an
Address-field. Anything after this semicolon will be ignored. If no
line with semicolon is found till the end of input and option -v is
specified (but not -C), a warning is shown, but all data-fields are
still converted. The reason for issuing the warning at all is that hex‐
dump outputs a semicolon-line at the end, and thus the warning most
likely indicates unexpected truncation. In interactive mode (option:
-I), this warning is suppressed.
Address-field:
A hexadecimal number, whose actual value is important ONLY
before and after repeatition-lines. If the value does not match
the internal data-counting, then a warning message is printed
(unless option -q is specified) and a variable is set to the
difference, which will then be added to all subsequent
addresses. Thus if you insert or delete data (or lines) in the
dump-file, there is no need to change all further addresses.
If the first (hex-)number of an input-line is not followed by a
colon or semicolon, it will be interpreted as part of the data-
field.
Data-field:
can be a sequence of hexadecimal values separated by spaces
mixed with strings, which are handled c-like (escape-codes
\n,\a,\nnn,...). Thus the following is a valid Data-field:
0A 7f " \\\aBeep\t" - 04 1b "\0"
which will be converted to a newline(0A), a Delete-char(7F), a
space (first character of string), a backslash(\\), a beep-
code(\a), the characters ´B´ ´e´ ´e´ ´p´, a tab, an EOF-code,
an Esc-code and the Null-byte. Dashes ('-') will be ignored
for compatibility with hexdump's output.
Repetition-lines:
Lines that begin with an asterisk will cause the latest data-
field to be repeated a certain number of times. There must have
been at least one line containing at least one byte of data
before the first repetition line, or an error message is issued
and conversion aborted.
The actual number of repetitions can be specified in two ways:
explicitly: if a decimal number follows the asterisk, this num‐
ber will specify the number of repetitions. (Note: to get a
total of e.g. 10 times a chunk, specify 9, because the chunk
itself was already output once where it appeared in the input.)
implicitly: If no explicit count is specified, the number of
repetitions is automatically calculated based on the address-
field of the next input line. In this case, an address must be
specified there, otherwise an error occurs and conversion is
aborted. Even more, if the number of bytes necessary to reach
the next specified address is not a multiple of the byte length
of the repeated chunk, this is also an error.
BUGS
none ;-)
Report missing features (in your eyes) to author's address
SEE ALSOhexdump(1)COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1994 by Andreas Leitgeb (AvL)
(avl@logic.at)
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, pro‐
vided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in sup‐
porting documentation.
5 May 2001 hex2bin(1)
