On Fri, 13 Nov 2015 11:28:36 -0500 Greg Reagle <greg.rea...@umbc.edu> wrote:
> What do you think? I personally wouldn't use it over hexer, but it's an interesting idea. Pros: - very minimal; great for embedded (assuming no dependence on vim) Cons: - can't edit the ascii values on the right; everything is parsed from the hex. - no syntax checking, since the editor sees it as plain text - can't edit very large files in-place; must parse/copy the entire file > I was afraid to overwrite the infile so I make the > user specify an outfile. Maybe if I did better error checking it would > be okay to overwrite? "xxd -r" doesn't do any syntax checking, according to the manpage. So, overwriting the file would be like playing with fire. However, how often do you hex edit a file without creating a backup first? Hex editing is an error-prone operation regardless of the tool. If outfile matches infile, consider moving/renaming the original file and making it the backup. Might have to watch for permissions/"mount -ro" errors, though. -- Matt Boswell
