How to edit binary file on Unix systems [closed]

Answer 1

Bless is a high quality, full featured hex editor.

It is written in mono/Gtk# and its primary platform is GNU/Linux. However it should be able to run without problems on every platform that mono and Gtk# run. Main Features Bless currently provides the following features:

• Efficient editing of large data files and block devices.
• Multilevel undo - redo operations.
• Customizable data views.
• Fast data rendering on screen.
• Multiple tabs.
• Fast find and replace operations.
• A data conversion table.
• Advanced copy/paste capabilities.
• Highlighting of selection pattern matches in the file.
• Plugin based architecture.
• Export of data to text and html (others with plugins).
• Bitwise operations on data.
• A comprehensive user manual.

copied from http://home.gna.org/bless/

Answer 2

You can also try ghex2 GNOME utilities. This give you the automated hex-to-ASCII on the side, as well as the various character/integer decodes at the bottom.
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Answer 3

There are much more hexeditors on Linux/Unix....

I use hexedit on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install hexedit

Answer 4

There's lightweight binary editor, check hexedit. http://www.linux.org/apps/AppId_6968.html. I tried using it for editing ELF binaries in Linux at least.

Answer 5

you can check wikipedia.

I prefer BIEW especially.

Answer 6

In vim You can type :%!xxd to turn it into a hexeditor. :%!xxd -r to go back to normal mode. xxd is shipped in a vim installation.

See here for some remarks about editing binary files with vim (boils down to :set binary to avoid trouble, use only the "R" or "r" command to change text, don't delete characters).

If You are an Emacs fan, see here for a guide on how to edit a binary file with Emacs.