doc/hexyl.1.md
% HEXYL(1) hexyl 0.12.0 | General Commands Manual % % 2022-12-05
hexyl - a command-line hex viewer
hexyl [OPTIONS] [FILE]
hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal. It uses a colored output to distinguish different categories of bytes (NULL bytes, printable ASCII characters, ASCII whitespace characters, other ASCII characters and non-ASCII).
FILE : The file to display. If no FILE argument is given, read from STDIN.
-n, --length N : Only read N bytes from the input. The N argument can also include a unit with a decimal prefix (kB, MB, ..) or binary prefix (kiB, MiB, ..), or can be specified using a hex number.
Examples:
:
Read the first 64 bytes:
: $ **hexyl \--length=64**
Read the first 4 kibibytes:
: $ **hexyl \--length=4KiB**
Read the first 255 bytes (specified using a hex number):
: $ **hexyl \--length=0xff**
-c, --bytes N : An alias for -n/--length.
-l N : Yet another alias for -n/--length.
-s, --skip N : Skip the first N bytes of the input. The N argument can also include a unit (see --length for details). A negative value is valid and will seek from the end of the file.
--block-size SIZE : Sets the size of the block unit to SIZE (default is 512).
Examples:
:
Sets the block size to 1024 bytes:
: $ **hexyl \--block-size=1024 \--length=5block**
Sets the block size to 4 kilobytes:
: $ **hexyl \--block-size=4kB \--length=2block**
-v, --no-squeezing : Displays all input data. Otherwise any number of groups of output lines which would be identical to the preceding group of lines, are replaced with a line comprised of a single asterisk.
--color WHEN : When to use colors. The auto-mode only displays colors if the output goes to an interactive terminal.
Possible values:
: - **always** (default)
- **auto**
- **never**
--border STYLE : Whether to draw a border with Unicode characters, ASCII characters, or none at all.
Possible values:
: - **unicode** (default)
- **ascii**
- **none**
-o, --display-offset N : Add N bytes to the displayed file position. The N argument can also include a unit (see --length for details). A negative value is valid and calculates an offset relative to the end of the file.
-h, --help : Prints help information.
-V, --version : Prints version information.
hexyl colors can be configured via environment variables. The variables used are as follows:
: - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_PRINTABLE: Any non-whitespace printable ASCII character - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_WHITESPACE: Whitespace such as space or newline (only visible in middle panel with byte values) - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_OTHER: Any other ASCII character (< 0x80) besides null - HEXYL_COLOR_NULL: The null byte (0x00) - HEXYL_COLOR_NONASCII: Any non-ASCII byte (> 0x7F) - HEXYL_COLOR_OFFSET: The lefthand file offset
The colors can be any of the 8 standard terminal colors: black, blue, cyan, green, magenta, red, yellow and white. The "bright" variants are also supported (e.g., bright blue). Additionally, you can use the RGB hex format, #abcdef. For example, HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_PRINTABLE=blue HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_WHITESPACE="bright green" HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_OTHER="#ff7f99".
Source repository: : https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
Print a given file: : $ hexyl small.png
Print and view a given file in the terminal pager: : $ hexyl big.png | less -r
Print the first 256 bytes of a given special file: : $ hexyl -n 256 /dev/urandom
hexyl was written by David Peter [email protected].
Bugs can be reported on GitHub at: : https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/issues
hexyl is dual-licensed under:
: - Apache License 2.0 (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0) - MIT License (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
hexdump(1), xxd(1)