In computing, a hex dump is a textual hexadecimal view (on screen or paper) of (often, but not necessarily binary) computer data, from memory or from a computer file or storage device. Looking at a hex dump of data is usually done in the context of either debugging, reverse engineering or digital forensics.[1] Interactive editors that provide a similar view but also manipulating the data in question are called hex editors.
In a hex dump, each byte (8 bits) is represented as a two-digit hexadecimal number. Hex dumps are commonly organized into rows of 8 or 16 bytes, sometimes separated by whitespaces. Some hex dumps have the hexadecimal memory address at the beginning.
Some common names for this program function are hexdump
, hd
, od
, xxd
and simply dump
or even D
.