HEXYL(1)

📦
version 0.17.0 · 7 versions
, in arch rolling

✨ hexyl(1) — the terminal hex viewer that ATE 💅

okay bestie, so you know how sometimes you need to peek inside a file and see what's actually going on byte-by-byte? that's literally what hexyl does, and it's the manual page for it, and we're gonna get through it together. it's a command-line hex viewer (the NAME section said it, i'm just saying it louder 💖). no cap, this is the glow-up version of staring at raw bytes.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

hexyl [OPTIONS] [FILE]

that's the whole vibe. options and maybe a file, that's it. slay.

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal. it uses colored output to tell apart different categories of bytes — and yes, the color-coding is the whole main character energy here:

  • NULL bytes
  • printable ASCII characters
  • ASCII whitespace characters
  • other ASCII characters
  • non-ASCII (the fancy ones 💅)

it's giving "i can read hex now" and honestly? iconic.

🎀 POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS 🎀

  • FILE — the file you wanna display. if you don't give a FILE argument at all, it just reads from STDIN (so you can pipe stuff in, we love a flexible queen 🫶).

✨ OPTIONS ✨

get comfy, there's a bunch, but every single one is here, i promise.

  • -n, --length N — only read N bytes from the input. and bestie, N is flexible: it can include a unit with a decimal prefix (kB, MB, ..) or a binary prefix (kiB, MiB, ..), or you can give it as a hex number. so many ways to say "just this much" 😌

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 — literally just an alias for -n/--length. same energy, different letter.
  • -l N — yet another alias for -n/--length. three names, one job, she's versatile 💁‍♀️
  • -s, --skip N — skip the first N bytes of the input. N can include a unit too (peep --length for the deets). and plot twist: a negative value is valid and will seek from the end of the file. working backwards, we stan 😭
  • --block-size SIZE — sets the size of the block unit to SIZE (default is 512). this is for when you're measuring in "blocks" and need to define how big a block is.

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 that would be identical to the preceding group of lines gets replaced with a line that's just a single asterisk (*). so it's squeezing out the repeats unless you say no 💀
  • --color WHEN — when to use colors. auto-mode only displays colors if the output goes to an interactive terminal (so it knows when to flex and when to chill).

Possible values:

  • always (default)
  • auto
  • never
  • --border STYLE — whether to draw a border with Unicode characters, ASCII characters, or none at all. pick your aesthetic 🎨

Possible values:

  • unicode (default)
  • ascii
  • none
  • -o, --display-offset N — add N bytes to the displayed file position. N can include a unit (again, see --length). a negative value is valid and calculates an offset relative to the end of the file. offsets going both ways, she's fluid 🌊
  • -h, --help — prints help information. the classic "help me help you" move.
  • -V, --version — prints version information. for when you gotta know which hexyl you're dealing with 👑

💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

bestie. you can customize hexyl's colors via environment variables and it is so much fun. 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). and if you're feeling extra, you can use the RGB hex format, #abcdef. like, for example:

HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_PRINTABLE=blue HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_WHITESPACE="bright green" HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_OTHER="#ff7f99"

look at that palette. a whole aesthetic. 🌈

🔥 NOTES 🔥

Source repository:

https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl

(the plug is necessary, iykyk)

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

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

three examples, all iconic, no notes. ✨

👑 AUTHORS 👑

hexyl was written by David Peter mail@david-peter.de. shoutout to the author, main character energy fr fr.

🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

Bugs can be reported on GitHub at:

https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/issues

found a bug? don't be shy, report it, we love a proactive bestie 🫶

hexyl is dual-licensed under:

dual-licensed? versatile, generous, we love to see it.

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

hexdump(1), xxd(1)

(go check those out too, the whole hex-viewer friend group is here)

okay that's the whole page, bestie. and for the sign-off: this is hexyl 0.12.0, dated 2022-12-05. go peek at some bytes, you're gonna slay 💖🌸🦋

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