hexyl — A Colorful Command-Line Hex Viewer

Introduction

Classic xxd and hexdump print raw hex blocks without visual hierarchy — every byte looks the same. hexyl categorizes each byte into ASCII printable, ASCII whitespace, non-ASCII printable, or NULL/control, and tints each class differently. Scanning for magic numbers, string offsets, or corruption becomes a visual rather than algebraic task.

What hexyl Does

• Prints offset, hex bytes, and ASCII sidebar.
• Colorizes bytes by category.
• Accepts file paths or stdin.
• Supports --skip, --length, --nosqueeze, --border options.
• Uses terminal width to fit panel count.

Architecture Overview

hexyl reads bytes in large chunks, classifies each with a table lookup, and pipes styled ANSI through termcolor. Panels auto-adjust to terminal width. No background threads — a simple synchronous Rust binary.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Install via brew, cargo, apt, dnf, scoop.
• Config is entirely flags — no dotfiles.
• NO_COLOR=1 for monochrome.
• Useful with less -R or bat.
• Pairs with fd | xargs hexyl for batch preview.

Key Features

• Colored byte categories — scan like a pro.
• Stdin-friendly for network/streaming inspection.
• --skip/--length for targeted windows.
• Nice borders and offset hints.
• ~1.5MB static binary.

Comparison with Similar Tools

• xxd — ubiquitous; no color.
• hexdump -C — POSIX; dense, no hierarchy.
• bvi / hte — interactive hex editors.
• radare2 — full reverse-engineering toolkit; overkill for viewing.
• Hex Fiend — macOS GUI.

FAQ

Q: Can it edit files? A: No — read-only. Use bvi or radare2 to edit.

Q: Unicode-safe? A: It shows bytes, not glyphs — UTF-8 multi-byte chars appear as non-ASCII group.

Q: Panel count? A: Auto-sized; override with --panels 2.

Q: Works in CI logs? A: Pass --color always or pipe through aha for HTML.

Sources

• https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl