How to edit binary file on Unix systems

Question

On Windows machines there are lots of third party editors available to edit a binary file  Any idea how can I edit a binary file on Unix system

User · Answer

For small changes  I have used hexedit   http   rigaux org hexedit html  Simple but fast and useful

User · Answer

In vim You can type    xxd to turn it into a hexeditor     xxd -r to go back to normal mode  xxd is shipped in a vim installation   See here for some remarks about editing binary files with vim  boils down to  set binary to avoid trouble  use only the  R  or  r  command to change text  don t delete characters    If You are an Emacs fan  see here for a guide on how to edit a binary file with Emacs

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Bless is a high quality  full featured hex editor  It is written in mono Gtk  and its primary platform is GNU Linux  However it should be able to run without problems on every platform that mono and Gtk  run  Main Features Bless currently provides the following features   Efficient editing of large data files and block devices  Multilevel undo - redo operations  Customizable data views  Fast data rendering on screen  Multiple tabs  Fast find and replace operations  A data conversion table  Advanced copy paste capabilities  Highlighting of selection pattern matches in the file  Plugin based architecture  Export of data to text and html  others with plugins   Bitwise operations on data  A comprehensive user manual   copied from http   home gna org bless

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I made wxHexEditor  it s open sourced  written with C   wxWidgets GUI libs and can open even your exabyte sized disk   http   wxhexeditor sf net  Just try

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As variant  you can use radare2    gt  r2 -w  usr bin ls   0x004049d0  gt V   0x004049d0 14  1104  0x0 -1 1   gt  x   entry0 - offset -   0 1  2 3  4 5  6 7  8 9  A B  C D  E F  0123456789ABCDEF 0x004049d0  31ed 4989 d15e 4889 e248 83e4 f050 5449  1 I   H  H   PTI 0x004049e0  c7c0 103a 4100 48c7 c1a0 3941 0048 c7c7      A H   9A H   0x004049f0  202a 4000 e877 dcff fff4 660f 1f44 0000       w    f  D   0x00404a00  b807 e661 0055 482d 00e6 6100 4883 f80e     a UH-  a H    0x00404a10  4889 e576 1bb8 0000 0000 4885 c074 115d  H  v      H  t   0x00404a20  bf00 e661 00ff e066 0f1f 8400 0000 0000     a   f         0x00404a30  5dc3 0f1f 4000 662e 0f1f 8400 0000 0000        f          0x00404a40  be00 e661 0055 4881 ee00 e661 0048 c1fe     a UH    a H   0x00404a50  0348 89e5 4889 f048 c1e8 3f48 01c6 48d1   H  H  H   H  H  0x00404a60  fe74 15b8 0000 0000 4885 c074 0b5d bf00   t      H  t     0x00404a70  e661 00ff e00f 1f00 5dc3 660f 1f44 0000   a        f  D   0x00404a80  803d c19b 2100 0075 1155 4889 e5e8 6eff         u UH   n  0x00404a90  ffff 5dc6 05ae 9b21 0001 f3c3 0f1f 4000                   0x00404aa0  bf10 de61 0048 833f 0075 05eb 930f 1f00     a H   u       0x00404ab0  b800 0000 0048 85c0 74f1 5548 89e5 ffd0       H  t UH     0x00404ac0  5de9 7aff ffff 662e 0f1f 8400 0000 0000    z   f          0x00404ad0  488b 0731 d248 f7f6 4889 d0c3 0f1f 4000  H  1 H  H          For details about how work in visual mode you can read here

User · Answer

I like KHexEdit  which is part of KDE  Its  Windows style  UI is probably quite quick to learn for most people  compared to Vim or Emacs anyway

User · Answer

I used to use bvi   I am developing hexvi to overcome    xxd and bvi s limitations   hexvi  Features   vim-like keybindings and commands going to specific offsets inserting  replacing  deleting searching for stuff  PCRE regexes  everything is a command  and can be mapped in hexvirc color schemes support for large files support for multiple files  via tabs  Python so the entry level to hack around should be lower than C s CLI through and through   Cons   as of March 2016  it s alpha so features are missing  but I m working on those    file saving undo redo command history visual selection man page  no autocomplete   bvi  Features   vim-like keybindings and commands going to specific offsets inserting  deleting  replacing searching for stuff  text and hex  undo redo CLI through and through   Cons   regarding its vim capabilities - unfortunately  it understands only the most basic things and definitely needs more love in this regard  example  doesn t understand  wq  but understands  w and  q  no visual selection support whatsoever no tab split screen support crashes often no support for large files no command history no autocomplete

User · Answer

There are much more hexeditors on Linux Unix      I use hexedit on Ubuntu  sudo apt-get install hexedit

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You can also try ghex2 GNOME utilities   This give you the automated hex-to-ASCII on the side  as well as the various character integer decodes at the bottom    source  googlepages com

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you can check wikipedia   I prefer BIEW especially

User · Answer

I ve had good experience with wxHexEditor    just make sure if you are hex-editing a drive you do it via the menu  Devices - gt  Open Disk Device - gt  SCSI Disk Drive Partition   N

User · Answer

There s lightweight binary editor  check hexedit  http   www linux org apps AppId 6968 html  I tried using it for editing ELF binaries in Linux at least

[linux] How to edit binary file on Unix systems

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