HexDiff(1)

💖 HexDiff 💖

okay bestie so you found yourself a whole hexdiff manual page, the User Commands one, and honestly? iconic. let's get into it. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

hexdiff — it's a 'hexadecimal visual diff' for binary files. yes. for binary. we're looking at raw bytes together, hand in hand. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

hexdiff [-V] [-h|-?] file1 file2

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so hexdiff shows you a horizontally splitted hexadecimal view of the files you're comparing. side by side, bestie. like a little byte-versus-byte fashion show. 👑

the right column shows the ASCII view of the files. and at the bottom there's a status bar showing the filename, its size, and the current offset. 🫶

the current view gets marked with '**' on the left side of the view — that's how you know which one is the main character right now.

and when you move the cursor into the file, differences show up by 'inverting' colors. yes, color-flipping as a diff highlight. it's giving dramatic reveal. 🔥

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -V — shows the program version. short and sweet, a lil flex. ⭐
• -h | -? — shows the program help. when in doubt, ask. 🧚
• -X — help for debugging your ~/.hexdiffrc, or the rc file parser. deep lore mode. 💀

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🦋 KEYBOARD COMMANDS 🦋

• x — Exit the program.
• q — Exit the program.
• u — Move cursor up for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• j — Move cursor up for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• U — Move cursor up for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• d — Move cursor down for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• k — Move cursor down for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• D — Move cursor down for 1 line, or 4, inside the 2 files.
• <space> — Move cursor for several lines. (Depends on the display size)
• 0 — Move cursor at the beginning.
• <home> — Move cursor at the beginning.
• $ — Move cursor to the end of the most little file of both.
• g — Move cursor to the offset input.
• H — Switch offset display between decimal and hexadecimal. (initial mode is settable)
• i — Display fstat for the current file selected.
• I — Display fstat for both filess.
• A — Open the (currently) experimental AsciiViewer. Maybe coredump with no request. <tab> switch as usual.

bestie. read that again. "Maybe coredump with no request." it's experimental, okay, we love her anyway. 🙈

• ^O — Open a new file into the main view. Q to cancel, <Enter> to validate, ? for help.
• n — Move cursor to next difference between files.
• <tab> — Switch the current view.
• ? — Display the pop-up help view about the main commands.

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💜 CONFIG FILE 💜

$HOME/.hexdiffrc

that's it. that's the config file. put it in your home, live your truth. ✨

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

diff (1), cmp (1), /usr/share/doc/hexdiff/examples/hexdiff.rc

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💀 BUGS 💀

if you resize your xterm windows hexdiff may become unstable for a few.

and also: the end of file display may be broken if files are from differents sizes. yeah. we said what we said. 😭

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

Thierry Boudet aka tTh <tboudet@free.fr>

this manual page was written by Tanguy Herrmann <dolanor@evereska.org>, for the Ubuntu GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). 🫶

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⭐ WEBSITE ⭐

<http://tboudet.free.fr/hexdiff/>

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🍓 THANKS 🍓

this software is dedicated to the trollers kamarades from the HardStory team of CULTe, without whom nothing would have been possible. literally nothing. fr fr.

<http://www.culte.org>

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🌸 COPYRIGHT 🌸

Copyright © 2008 Thierry Boudet License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

this is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

there is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

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okay that's the whole thing, bestie, every last byte of it. 💖

and a lil sign-off from the bottom of the page: this whole vibe came from the TontonTh tools, dated February 2009, and it's filed under HexDiff(1). slay. 🎀✨