Manuals for the command line

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od - dump files in octal and other formats

SYNOPSIS

od [OPTION]... [FILE]...
od [-abcdfilosx]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b]]
od --traditional [OPTION]... [FILE] [[+]OFFSET[.][b] [+][LABEL][.][b]]

DESCRIPTION

Write an unambiguous representation, octal bytes by default, of FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE argument, concatenate them in the listed order to form the input.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

If first and second call formats both apply, the second format is assumed if the last operand begins with + or (if there are 2 operands) a digit. An OFFSET operand means -j OFFSET. LABEL is the pseudo-address at first byte printed, incremented when dump is progressing. For OFFSET and LABEL, a 0x or 0X prefix indicates hexadecimal; suffixes may be . for octal and b for multiply by 51.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-A, --address-radix=RADIX
output format for file offsets; RADIX is one of [doxn], for Decimal, Octal, Hex or None

--endian={big|little}
swap input bytes according the specified order

-j, --skip-bytes=BYTES
skip BYTES input bytes first

-N, --read-bytes=BYTES
limit dump to BYTES input bytes

-S BYTES, --strings[=BYTES]
show only NUL terminated strings of at least BYTES (3) printable characters

-t, --format=TYPE
select output format or formats

-v, --output-duplicates
do not use * to mark line suppression

-w[BYTES], --width[=BYTES]
output BYTES bytes per output line; 32 is implied when BYTES is not specified

--traditional
accept arguments in third form above

--help display this help and exit

--version
output version information and exit

Traditional format specifications may be intermixed; they accumulate:

-a     same as -t a,  select named characters, ignoring high-order bit

-b     same as -t o1, select octal bytes

-c     same as -t c,  select printable characters or backslash escapes

-d     same as -t u2, select unsigned decimal 2-byte units

-f     same as -t fF, select floats

-i     same as -t dI, select decimal ints

-l     same as -t dL, select decimal longs

-o     same as -t o2, select octal 2-byte units

-s     same as -t d2, select decimal 2-byte units

-x     same as -t x2, select hexadecimal 2-byte units

TYPE is made up of one or more of these specifications:

a      named character, ignoring high-order bit

c      printable character or backslash escape

d[SIZE]
signed decimal, SIZE bytes per integer

f[SIZE]
floating point, SIZE bytes per float

o[SIZE]
octal, SIZE bytes per integer

u[SIZE]
unsigned decimal, SIZE bytes per integer

x[SIZE]
hexadecimal, SIZE bytes per integer

SIZE is a number.  For TYPE in [doux], SIZE may also be C for sizeof(char), S for  sizeof(short),
I  for  sizeof(int)  or L for sizeof(long).  If TYPE is f, SIZE may also be B for Brain 16 bit, H
for Half precision float, F for sizeof(float), D for sizeof(double), or L  for  sizeof(long  double).

Adding a z suffix to any type displays printable characters at the end of each output line.

BYTES is hex with 0x or 0X prefix, and may have a multiplier suffix:

b      512

KB     1000

K      1024

MB     1000*1000

M      1024*1024

and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y, R, Q.  Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

EXAMPLES

od -A x -t x1z -v

Display hexdump format output

od -A o -t oS -w16

The default output format used by od

AUTHOR

Written by Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: [https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/] Report any translation bugs to [https://translationproject.org/team/]

SEE ALSO

Full documentation [https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/od] or available locally via: info '(coreutils) od invocation'

Packaged by Debian (9.7-3) Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later [https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html]. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.