U-A(1)

📦 version 7.44.0, in nixpkgs unstable

✨ NAME ✨

u-a — and yes bestie, this is the BRL-CAD U-A(1) page — converts binary unsigned shorts to ASCII numbers. That’s the whole name vibe, and it ate 💖

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

u-a < shorts > ascii

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Okay so picture this: u-a reads a stream of machine-native 16-bit unsigned short integers from standard input, then writes their decimal values, one per line, to standard output as ASCII text. It’s giving humble little converter, but it’s literally iconic ✨

Each value is printed with the %hd format, which means values are rendered as signed short integers — so those above 32767 appear as negative numbers. Not a bug, bestie, that’s the format doing its thing 😭

The command takes no options and no arguments; all data is passed through standard input and standard output. Related converters that read the same binary unsigned-short stream include u-bw(1), u-d(1), and u-f(1). Cute lil converter family 🫶

⚠️ Heads up: this command is deprecated and is scheduled for removal. It prints a deprecation warning on startup. So maybe don’t build your whole main character arc around it, fr fr 💀

🧪 EXAMPLES 🧪

Example 1. Inspect raw 16-bit sample data as text

u-a < samples.u | head

Decodes the binary unsigned-short stream in samples.u and shows the first ten decimal sample values — a quick way to sanity-check captured 16-bit data. Literally the vibe check for your raw samples 🌸

Example 2. Compute statistics on a binary short stream

u-a < signal.u | dstats

Converts the binary shorts to ASCII and pipes them to dstats(1) to report the minimum, maximum, mean, and other descriptive statistics of the sample values. Stats girlies rise 👑

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

👑 AUTHOR 👑

BRL-CAD Team — the squad behind this whole thing 💜

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Exact words, bestie, no edits 💅

🐛 BUG REPORTS 🐛

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org. Spill the tea, but make it a bug report 📧

Signing off from the BRL-CAD U-A(1) page 💖 source/version: BRL-CAD; date: not shown on this page, so no invented date, no cap 🌈

📦 where this page comes from