bindump

A simple binary dump tool for fun:)

Usage

bindump < data.bin > dump.txt # Encode mode.
bindump -d < dump.txt > data.bin # Decode mode.

Examples of execution

Encode

• data.bin

This is data of data.bin

• Output of bindump < data.bin

010101000110100001101001011100110010000001101001011100110010000001100100011000010111010001100001001000000110111101100110001000000110010001100001011101000110000100101110011000100110100101101110

Decode

• dump.txt

0101010001101000011010010111001100100000011010010111001100100000011011110111001001101001011001110110100101101110011000010110110000100000011101000110010101111000011101000010000001100010011001010110011001101111011100100110010100100000011001010110111001100011011011110110010001101001011011100110011100101110

• Output of bindump < dump.txt

This is original text before encoding.

Options

-d           : Decode binary dump text to binary data.
-i <filename> : Load data from file instead of stdin.
-o <filename> : Write data to file instead of stdout.

-h --help    : Show this help.
-v --version : Show version info.

Build instructions

You can compile this program with any compilers that supports C89 or later.

If you are using gcc, follow the command like this:

gcc bindump.c -o bindump -O2

Supported platforms

This program should be compiled and run on any platforms.
These platforms are tested by developer:

Compilers

• gcc
• clang
• Microsoft Visual C++
• Microsoft QuickC
• OpenWatcom

Operating systems

• GNU/Linux
  • Debian 13
  • Ubuntu 24.04
• Windows
  • Windows 98
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 11
• macOS 26 Tahoe
• MS-DOS (both PC/AT Compatibles and NEC PC-9800 Series)

Notes

This tool was designed mainly for fun. This may not suitable for development, office use and other than playing.

Why did you create this? There is already a greater and richer features program xxd.

Yes, I know that.
However, it seemed complicated and didn’t accomplish what I was looking for.

I ran the following command:

xxd -g0 -c0 -ps -b < file.bin > dump.txt

I expected the output to look like 0101010…, but I received:

xxd: only one of -b, -e, -u, -p, -i can be used

This indicates that xxd cannot produce an unformatted binary dump.
I needed a simple and easy‑to‑understand program that can output unformatted binary dump as text and restore it.

License

MIT License