o Right-Arrow, Left-Arrow, Down-Arrow, Up-Arrow - move the cursor.
o Ctrl+F, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+P - move the cursor.
o Ctrl+Right-Arrow, Ctrl+Left-Arrow, Ctrl+Down-Arrow, Ctrl+Up-Arrow - move n times the cursor.
o Esc+Right-Arrow, Esc+Left-Arrow, Esc+Down-Arrow, Esc+Up-Arrow - move n times the cursor.
o Esc+F, Esc+B, Esc+N, Esc+P - move n times the cursor.
o Home, Ctrl+A - go the beginning of the line.
o End, Ctrl+E - go to the end of the line.
o Pageup, Esc+V, F5 - go up in the file by one page.
o Pagedown, Ctrl+V, F6 - go down in the file by one page.
o <, Esc+<, Esc+Home - go to the beginning of the file.
o >, Esc+>, Esc+End - go to the end of the file (for regular files that have a size).
o Ctrl+Z - suspend hexedit.
o Ctrl+U, Ctrl+_, Ctrl+/ - undo all (forget the modifications).
o Ctrl+Q - read next input character and insert it (this is useful for inserting control characters and
bound keys).
o Tab, Ctrl+T - toggle between ASCII and hexadecimal.
o /, Ctrl+S - search forward (in ASCII or in hexadecimal, use TAB to change).
o Ctrl+R - search backward.
o Ctrl+G, F4 - go to a position in the file.
o Return - go to a sector in the file if --sector is used, otherwise go to a position in the file.
o Esc+L - display the page starting at the current cursor position.
o F2, Ctrl+W - save the modifications.
o F1, Esc+H - help (show the man page).
o Ctrl+O, F3 - open another file
o Ctrl+L - redisplay (refresh) the display (useful when your terminal screws up).
o Backspace, Ctrl+H - undo the modifications made on the previous byte.
o Esc+Ctrl+H - undo the modifications made on the previous bytes.
o Ctrl+Space, F9 - set mark where cursor is.
o Esc+W, Delete, F7 - copy selected region.
o Ctrl+Y, Insert, F8 - paste (yank) previously copied region.
o Esc+Y, F11 - save previously copied region to a file.
o Esc+I, F12 - fill the selection with a string
o Esc+T - truncate the file at the current location
o Ctrl+C - unconditional quit (without saving).
o F10, Ctrl+X - quit.
For the Esc commands, it sometimes works to use Alt instead of Esc. Funny things here (especially for
froggies :) egrave = Alt+H , ccedilla = Alt+G, Alt+Y = ugrave.
Modeline
At the bottom of the display you have the modeline (copied from emacs). As in emacs, you have the
indications --, ** and %% meaning unmodified, modified and read-only. Then you have the name of the file
you're currently editing. Next to it is the current position of the cursor in the file followed by the
total file size. The total file size isn't quite correct for devices.
While in --sector mode, it shows the sector the cursor is in.
Editing
You can edit in ASCII or in hexadecimal. You can switch between the two with Tab. When the file is read-
only, you can't edit it. When trying to edit a read-only file, a message "File is read-only" tells you it
is non-writable.
The modifications are shown in bold until they are saved. The modeline indicates whether you have
modified the file or not.
When editing in hexadecimal, only 0,1,...,9, a,b,...,f, A,B,...F are legal. Other keys are unbound. The
first time you hit an unbound key, the help pops up. It won't pop again unless you call the help
directly (with F1).
When editing in ascii, you can find it difficult to enter characters like / which are bound to a
function. The solution is to use the quoted insert function Ctrl+Q, the key after the quoted insert
function is not processed by hexedit (like emacs' quoted-insert, or like the \ character in C).
Searching
You can search for a string in ASCII or in hexadecimal. You can switch between the two with Tab. If the
string is found, the cursor is moved to the beginning of the matching location. If the search failed, a
message "not found" tells you so. You can cancel the search by pressing a key.
The search in hexadecimal is a bit confusing. You must give a hexadecimal string with an even number of
characters. The search can then be done byte by byte. If you want to search a long number (eg: a 32 bit
number), you must know the internal representation of that number (little/big endian problem) and give it
the way it is in memory. For example, on an Intel processor (little endian), you must swap every bytes:
0x12345678 is written 0x78563412 in memory and that's the string you must give to the search engine.
Before searching you are asked if you want to save the changes, if the file is edited.
For more sophisticated search, see Volker Schatz's patch at
<http://www.volkerschatz.com/unix/homebrew.html#hexedit>.
Selecting,copying,pasting,filling
First, select the part of the buffer you want to copy: start setting the mark where you want. Then go to
the end of the area you want to copy (you can use the go to function and the search functions). Then copy
it. You can then paste the copied area in the current file or in another file.
You can also fill the selected area with a string or a character: start choosing the block you want to
fill in (set mark then move to the end of the block), and call the fill function (F12). hexedit ask you
the string you want to fill the block with.
The code is not tuned for huge filling as it keeps the modifications in memory until you save them.
That's why hexedit will warn you if you try to fill in a big block.
When the mark is set, the selection is shown in reverse mode.
Be aware that the copied area contains the modifications done at the time of the copy. But if you undo
the modifications, it does not change the content of the copy buffer. It seems obvious but it's worth
saying.
Scrolling
The scrolling is different whether you are in --sector mode or not. In normal mode, the scrolling is line
by line. In sector mode, the scrolling is sector by sector. In both modes, you can force the display to
start at a given position using Esc+L.
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