The Linux Newbie Guide

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Fundamentals

od - Octal Dump for Binary Output

When using cat to read a binary file (such as an executable), you often encounter a jumble of unreadable characters. To read binary files, you can use od(octal dump). The basic usage is od [OPTIONS] FILENAME.

Here are some common options for the od command:

-a： Display in a mixed format of decimal, octal, and hexadecimal.
-b：Display in octal format.
-c： Display in ASCII character format.。
-d：Display in signed decimal format.
-x：Display in hexadecimal format.

Example:

$ od -tx /bin/reset ←Display the binary file "/bin/reset" in hexadecimal format
0000000 464c457f 00010102 00000000 00000000
0000020 003e0002 00000001 0040225e 00000000
0000040 00000040 00000000 000046e8 00000000

For more detailed parameters and examples of the od command, you can refer to the provided link.