xxd:tldr:e6938

xxd: Display a more compact output, replacing consecutive zeros (if any) with a star.

$ xxd -a ${input_file}

try on your machine

The command xxd -a ${input_file} is used to create a hex dump of a file.

Here's a breakdown of the different components:

xxd: This is the command itself. It is a hexadecimal dump utility that is available on most Unix-like operating systems.
-a: This is an option for xxd which indicates that ASCII characters should be displayed alongside the hexadecimal values in the output. Without this option, only the hexadecimal representation would be shown.
${input_file}: This is a placeholder that should be replaced with the actual path to the input file you want to create a hex dump of. This can be a relative or absolute path.

So, when you run the command xxd -a ${input_file}, it will execute the xxd command with the given options and display the hexadecimal representation of the file's contents, along with the corresponding ASCII characters.

This explanation was created by an AI. In most cases those are correct. But please always be careful and never run a command you are not sure if it is safe.

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