RAX2(1)

💅 RAX2(1) — Radare2 Base Converter

okay so bestie, gather round, because rax2 is genuinely one of the most underrated glow-ups in the radare2 family and I need you to know about it. It's the Radare2 Base Converter, and it's about to become your main character tool. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

rax2 [-abcCdDeEfFhHijkKnoqrsStuUvwxXzZ] [[expr] ...]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

rax2 is a versatile calculator for numerical base conversions, string encoding/decoding, and data representation within Radare2 — and yes she does all of it. She supports C-string encoding, hexpairs, Base64, and a whole bunch of other formats. it's giving swiss army knife, no cap. 🔥

the most common numerical bases, since we're being educated today:

• binary (base 2) — for direct machine code interaction, iykyk
• hexadecimal (base 16) — for memory addresses and compact data representation
• decimal (base 10) — for human-readable calculations and interpretations, aka the one you can actually read at 3am

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

• -a — Show ASCII table. the whole vibe check, laid out for you ✨
• -b base — Force output mode (numeric base). your options are:
  • f — floating point
  • 2 — binary
  • 3 — ternary
  • 8 — octal
  • 10 — decimal
  • 16 — hexadecimal

and listen, when you use it with -s and -e, it selects the word size in bits for endian-swapping hex input. valid word sizes are 8, 16, 32, and 64 bits. don't try anything else, she will not be amused 💀

• -c — Show hexadecimal C string from integer value
• -C — Dump stdin to C array in stdout. literally the xxd replacement, she ate
• -d — Print the result in decimal (base 10)
• -D — Decode the input data using base64
• -e — Swap endianness. when paired with -s, it requires -b to specify the word size — no -b, no swap, that's the rule 🫶
• -E — Encode the input data using base64
• -f — Interpret the input number as a 32bit dword and display it using the IEEE 754 standard for floating point arithmetic. fancy fr fr
• -F — Read C strings from stdin and output in hexpairs. super useful to load shellcodes 👑
• -h — Show usage help message
• -H — Convert a string into a hash
• -i — Convert LONG to/from IP ADDRESS
• -j — Show the output in json format, the same as the r2 ?j 0x804 command
• -k — Keep the same base as the input data. loyalty 💖
• -K — Show randomart key asciiart for values or hexpairs
• -n — Append newline to the decoded output for human friendliness
• -o — Convert from octal string to char (rax2 -o 162 62)
• -q — Be quiet. Show less information or drop the superfluous details in the output. she's not mad, she's just quiet 🤫
• -r — Show the same output as the r2's ? 0x804 command. and when combined with -S (-rS) it will print r2 commands to write the actual binary into radare2. iconic behavior
• -s — Convert from hex pairs string to character (rax2 -s 43 4a 50)
• -S — Convert from character to hex string (rax2 -S C J P)
• -t — Convert epoch timestamp to human readable date format
• -u — Convert given value to human readable units format
• -v — Show version information
• -w — Display the result as 16bit signed integer value
• -x — Show hexpairs from integer value
• -X — Convert a bit stream (an arbitrary sequence of 0 and 1 of any length) to hexadecimal. the result can be larger than 64bits, so don't come for her about size 💅
• -z — Convert from character string to binary (rax2 -z hello)
• -Z — Convert from binary string to string (rax2 -Z 01000101)

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🌈 USAGE 🌈

available variable types are, and I'm quoting this exactly because it's sacred:

  int       ->  hex           rax2 10
  hex       ->  int           rax2 0xa
  -int      ->  hex           rax2 -77
  -hex      ->  int           rax2 0xffffffb3
  int       ->  bin           rax2 b30
  int       ->  ternary       rax2 t42
  bin       ->  int           rax2 1010d
  ternary   ->  int           rax2 1010dt
  float     ->  hex           rax2 3.33f
  hex       ->  float         rax2 Fx40551ed8
  oct       ->  hex           rax2 35o
  hex       ->  oct           rax2 Ox12 (O is a letter)
  bin       ->  hex           rax2 1100011b
  hex       ->  bin           rax2 Bx63
  ternary   ->  hex           rax2 212t
  hex       ->  ternary       rax2 Tx23
  raw       ->  hex           rax2 -S < /binfile
  hex       ->  raw           rax2 -s 414141

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

with no arguments, rax2 reads values from stdin. you can also pass one or more values as arguments, whatever fits your vibe:

$ rax2 33 0x41 0101b
0x21
65
0x5

you can do 'unpack' hexpair encoded strings easily. so easy. effortless. 🦋

$ rax2 -s 41 42 43
ABC

swap the byte order of each 32-bit word in a hex stream:

$ printf 1122334455667788 | rax2 -esb 32 | rax2 -S
4433221188776655

it supports some math operations, because of course she does:

$ rax2 1+1 "0x5*101b+5"
2
30

encode and decode binary file using base64:

$ rax2 -E < /bin/ls > ls.b64
$ rax2 -D < ls.b64 > ls

$ cmp /bin/ls ls && echo $?
0

use -z/-Z to convert between binary and string:

$ rax2 -z hello
01101000011001010110110001101100011011000000000000000000
$ rax2 -Z 01101000011001010110110001101100011011000000000000000000
hello

hash strings:

$ rax2 -H linux osx
linux: 0x5ccc1772
osx: 0x099bf94f

work with IP addresses:

$ rax2 -i 127.0.0.1
0x0100007f
$ rax2 -i 0x0100007f
127.0.0.1

it is a very useful tool for scripting, so you can read floating point values, or get the integer offset of a jump or a stack delta when analyzing programs. honestly? scripting queen. 👑

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

rax2 does not use any environment variables. zero. none. she's low maintenance like that 💜

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• radare2(1)

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🌸 WWW 🌸

https://www.radare.org

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

pancake <pancake@nopcode.org>

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okay bestie that's the whole page, go forth and convert everything. mwah 💖

this edition dropped Aug 22, 2026 and lives in the RAX2(1) manual — see you in the next one, love u 🫶