Linux show binary file

How to use bash script to read binary file content?

I want to read a character and then a fixed length of string (the string is not null terminated in the file, and its length is given by the preceding character). How can I do this in a bash script? How to define the string variable so that I can do some post-processing on it?

5 Answers 5

If you want to stick with shell utilities, you can use head to extract a number of bytes, and od to convert a byte into a number.

export LC_ALL=C # make sure we aren't in a multibyte locale n=$(head -c 1 | od -An -t u1) string=$(head -c $n) 

However, this does not work for binary data. There are two problems:

Command substitution $(…) strips final newlines in the command output. There’s a fairly easy workaround: make sure the output ends in a character other than a newline, then strip that one character.

string=$(head -c $n; echo .); string=$

If you have binary data, you’ll want to switch to a language like Perl or Python.

If you want to be able to deal with binary file in shell, the best option (only?) is to work with hexdump tool.

hexdump -v -e '/1 "%u\n"' binary.file | while read c; do echo $c done 

head -cX binary.file | hexdump -v -e '/1 "%u\n"' | while read c; do echo $c done 

Read length (and work with 0 as length) and then «string» as byte decimal value:

len=$(head -c1 binary.file | hexdump -v -e '/1 "%u\n"') if [ $len -gt 0 ]; then tail -c+2 binary.file | head -c$len | hexdump -v -e '/1 "%u\n"' | while read c; do echo $c done fi 

Rather than just present a bunch of commands, can you explain what they do and how they work? What do the options mean? What output can the user expect from your commands? Please do not respond in comments; edit your answer to make it clearer and more complete.

Well, I can copy manpages here, but I don’t see the point. There is only basic commands used here, the only trick is the usage of hexdump.

read -N stops at null bytes, so this is not a suitable way to work with binary data. In general, shells other than zsh can’t cope with nulls.

UPDATE (with hindsight). This question/answer (my answer) makes me think of the dog which keeps chasing the car.. One day, finally, he catches up to the car.. Okay, he caught it, but he really can’t do much with it. This anser ‘catches’ the strings, but then you can’t do much with them, if they have embedded null-bytes. (so a big +1 to Gilles answer.. another language may be in order here.)

dd reads any and all data. It certainly won’t baulk at zero as a «length». but if you have \x00 anywhere in your data, you will need to be creative how you handle it; dd has no propblems with it, but your shell script will have problems (but it depends on what you want to do with the data). The following basically outputs each «data string», to a file with a line divider between each strin.

btw: You say «character», and I assume you mean «byte».
but the word «character» has become ambiguous in these days of UNICODE, where only the 7-bit ASCII character-set uses a single byte per character. And even within the Unicode system, byte counts vary depending on the method of encoding characters, eg. UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.

Here is a simple script to highlight the difference between a Text «character» and bytes.

STRING="௵" echo "CHAR count is: $" echo "BYTE count is: $(echo -n $STRING|wc -c)" # CHAR count is: 1 # BYTE count is: 3 # UTF-8 ecnoded (on my system) 

If your length character is 1-byte long and indicates a byte-length, then this script should do the trick, even if the data contains Unicode characters. dd only sees bytes regardless of any locale setting.

This script uses dd to read the binary file and outputs the strings seperated by a «=== =================================»; echo $div ((skip=0)) # read bytes at this offset while ( true ) ; do # Get the «length» byte ((count=1)) # count of bytes to read dd if=binfile bs=1 skip=$skip count=$count of=datalen 2>/dev/null (( $( strlen=$((0x$(/dev/null ddgetct=$( echo -e «\n$div» >>dataline # add a newline for TEST PURPOSES ONLY. cat dataline # ((skip=skip+count)) # read bytes from and including this offset done # echo

This script builds test data which includes a 3-byte prefix per line.
The prefix is a single UTF-8 encoded Unicode character.

# build test data # =============== prefix="௵" # prefix all non-zero length strings will this obvious 3-byte marker. prelen=$(echo -n $prefix|wc -c) printf \\0 > binfile # force 1st string to be zero-length (to check zero-length logic) ( lmax=3 # line max . the last on is set to 255-length (to check max-length logic) for ((i=1;i<=$lmax;i++)) ; do # add prefixed random length lines suflen=$(numrandom /0..$((255-prelen))/) # random length string (min of 3 bytes) ((i==lmax)) && ((suflen=255-prelen)) # make last line full length (255) strlen=$((prelen+suflen)) printf \\$((($strlen/64)*100+$strlen%64/8*10+$strlen%8))"$prefix" for ((j=0;j>binfile # 

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binary file linux

Binaries are files that contain compiled source code (or machine code). Binary files are the files which contain compiled source code (or machine code). They are also called executable files because they can be executed on the computer. Binary directory contains following directories: /bin.

How do I view a binary file in Linux?

1. $ file /bin/ls. .
2. $ ldd /bin/ls. .
3. $ ltrace ls. .
4. $ hexdump -C /bin/ls | head. .
5. $ readelf -h /bin/ls. .
6. $ objdump -d /bin/ls | head. .
7. $ strace -f /bin/ls. .
8. $ cat hello.c.

How do you write a binary file?

1. address of data to be written in the disk.
2. size of data to be written in the disk.
3. number of such type of data.
4. pointer to the file where you want to write.

How do I view a binary file?

1. Go to menu Edit > Find.
2. In the Find What box, select a previous search string from the drop-down list or type the data you want to find.
3. Select any of the Find options and choose Find Next.

Is PDF a binary file?

PDF files are either 8-bit binary files or 7-bit ASCII text files (using ASCII-85 encoding). Every line in a PDF can contain up to 255 characters.

What is a binary file and how do I open it?

Opening a binary file is very easy. For example, use any hex editor to open the file and view its contents in multiple formats such as hexadecimal and Ascii. Use Google to find a free hex editor for your operating system. Many programmer’s editors have this feature built in or as an optional plugin.

How do I run a binary executable in Linux?

To make the file executable first, right-click on the binary file and then properties and go to permissions. On Permissions thick the checkbox with the option allows executing the file as program close the program and double click on the binary.

How do you convert binary to words?

To convert binary numbers to letters, just grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and add up the binary values of all the 1s. Then look up your total number as an ASCII decimal in the chart above.

Where are binary commands stored?

Purpose. Utilities used for system administration (and other root-only commands) are stored in /sbin , /usr/sbin , and /usr/local/sbin . /sbin contains binaries essential for booting, restoring, recovering, and/or repairing the system in addition to the binaries in /bin .

Is .exe a binary file?

EXE files are different from BAT files since they contain executable binary data rather than plain text commands. They are stored in the Portable Executable (PE) format. The EXE file format includes various headers and sections that tell Windows how to run a program.

Is .dat a binary file?

BIN File : The BIN file type is primarily associated with ‘Binary File’. . DAT File : The DAT file type is primarily associated with ‘Data’. Can be just about anything: text, graphic, or general binary data. Data file in special format or ASCII.

What is a binary file used for?

A binary file is a file whose content must be interpreted by a program or a hardware processor that understands in advance exactly how it is formatted. That is, the file is not in any externally identifiable format so that any program that wanted to could look for certain data at a certain place within the file.

Email

Best email clients for LinuxThunderbird. Thunderbird is one of the most popular and oldest open-source email client from Mozilla Foundation. . Evolu.

Sqlite

Restore an SQLite DatabaseThe . restore Command. The . . Attach the Database. Another way to restore a backup file is to simply attach it directly. .

Teamviewer

To install TeamViewer on your Ubuntu system, follow these steps: Download the TeamViewer DEB package from https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.

Latest news, practical advice, detailed reviews and guides. We have everything about the Linux operating system

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how to open .bin file using terminal in linux

I have one .bin file.in that file some data which is important for me and and i want to open that file by using terminal so please help me.I have not any software for that. so give me and command.

.bin files or .run files are usually, in my experience, self extracting shell scripts. Where did you get this from? What’s the name? What is it supposed to contain?

do you want to open (read) it or run it? call file my.bin , see if its a shell script and then run it with sh my.bin . i hope the source of the file is trustworthy!

5 Answers 5

You have to be sure of what you’re downloading (because a .bin file extension is also used for CD/DVD images and backups). Check with the «provider» (Web Page, CD/DVD instructions, etc. ) of the file that it can be executed as a program.

A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term «binary file» is often used as a term meaning «non-text file». Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document files containing formatted text, such as older Microsoft Word document files, contain the text of the document but also contain formatting information in binary form.

1. Open your terminal and go to ~$ cd /Downloads (where ~/Downloads is the folder where you bin file is)
2. Give it execution permissions (just in case it doesn’t have it already):
   ~/Downloads$ sudo chmod +x filename.bin
3. Write: ./ followed by the name and extension of your bin file. In this example it would be: ~/Downloads$ ./filename.bin

• If filename.bin needs administrator priviledges to be executed (like an installer would), write ~/Downloads$ sudo ./filename.bin and type your password.
• ~/Downloads folder is only an example. You can place your bin file anywhere you feel comfortable (yes, even a USB Drive or a SDCard).

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