VBINDIFF(1)

✨ vbindiff — the hex-viewer bestie you didn't know you needed ✨

okay so first of all, hi 💖 this is the manual page for vbindiff (section 1 of the manual, she's that girl), and it was written by Christopher J. Madsen, who lowkey ate with this whole tool. let's get into it, no cap.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

vbindiff — hexadecimal file display and comparison 🦋

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💅 SYNOPSIS 💅

vbindiff file1 [ file2 ]

like. that's it. that's the whole vibe.

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Visual Binary Diff (VBinDiff) shows you files in hexadecimal and ASCII (or EBCDIC, she contains multitudes). It can also show you two files at the same time and highlight the differences between them, which is honestly so iconic of it. And unlike diff, it works well with big files — up to 4 GB. fr fr. 💖

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🔥 Viewing files 🔥

Movement Keys — the girlies that get you around

• Up — Move one line (16 bytes) towards the beginning of the file
• Down — Move one line (16 bytes) towards the end of the file
• Left — Move one byte towards the beginning of the file
• Right — Move one byte towards the end of the file
• PageUp — Move one page towards the beginning of the file
• PageDn — Move one page towards the end of the file
• Home — Move to the beginning of the file
• End — Move to the end of the (shorter) file
• F — Search for a string or byte sequence 🔍
• G — Move to a specified file position

When you're displaying two files, both files move together, like the duo they are. But if bytes have been added or removed in one of the files, you can adjust the comparison by moving just one of the files. To move only the top file, press "T". To move only the bottom file, press "B". To go back to moving both files, press the same key again. (The window at the bottom of the screen will indicate when you are moving only one file — she tells you everything, we love a transparent queen 👑)

Other Keys — the rest of the crew

• Enter — Move to the next difference between the files
• Space — (same as Enter)
• C — Toggle between ASCII and EBCDIC display
• E — Edit currently displayed section of file ✏️
• Esc — Exit VBinDiff
• Q — Exit VBinDiff

The "Enter" key will advance to the next difference between the files (after those already displayed on the screen). If there are no more differences, it moves to the end. so it never leaves you hanging 💀

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🎀 Line editor 🎀

The line editor is what you use to enter search strings and file positions. It uses the basic Emacs-style editing keys, because of course it does. iykyk.

Keys

• Ctrl-B, Left — Move the cursor one character left
• Ctrl-F, Right — Move the cursor one character right
• Ctrl-A, Home — Move to the beginning of the line
• Ctrl-E, End — Move to the end of the line
• Ctrl-P, Up — Move up in input history
• Ctrl-N, Down — Move down in input history
• Ctrl-H, Backspace — Delete the character to the left
• Ctrl-D, Delete — Delete the character under the cursor
• Ctrl-K — Delete from cursor to end of line
• Insert — Toggle between insert & overstrike mode
• Enter — Finished entering text
• Esc — Abort the operation

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🦋 Editing files 🦋

You can press "E" to edit the current file. When you're displaying two files, this edits the one in the top window — unless you're in "move bottom" mode, in which case bestie, it does not.

When editing, you can move the cursor around with the arrow keys. Use TAB to switch between entering hexadecimal or ASCII (or EBCDIC) characters. Press the Esc key when you are done. You'll be given the choice to save or discard your changes then, so no pressure but also all the pressure 🙈

If you're displaying two files, you can use the Enter key to copy a byte from the other file into the one you're editing. cute little copy-paste moment 💖

⚠️ You cannot scroll through the file while editing, although you can save your changes and then move to a different part of the file. Also, you cannot insert or delete bytes, only change them. that's the rule, periodt.

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🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

• -L, --license — Display license information for vbindiff
• -V, --version — Display the version number
• --help — Display help information

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💀 BUGS 💀

Does not work properly with files over 4 gigabytes. It should be able to view the first 4 gigabytes ok, but the display only has room for 8 hex digits of file position, and the Goto box is also limited to 8 digits. so like, she's trying her best but the math is not mathing past that point 😭

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👑 LICENSE 👑

VBinDiff is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

VBinDiff is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with VBinDiff (see the file COPYING); if not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

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🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Christopher J. Madsen <vbindiff .at. cjmweb.net>

<https://www.cjmweb.net/vbindiff/> — <https://github.com/madsen/vbindiff>

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you're officially educated 💅 and just so you know, this was VBinDiff 3.0_beta5, dated 2017-09-10, living in section VBINDIFF(1) of the manual — go forth and hex-diff, mwah 🎀✨