How to handle binary files in Vim

📅 2022-Jan-06 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ binary, vim ⬩ 📚 Archive

Though Vim is primarily designed for dealing with text files, it can be used to read, view and write binary files with the help of external tools. I like the use of the xxd tool for this.

• To open a binary file in Vim:

$ vim foobar.bin
:set binary

or

$ vim -b foobar.bin

• Once a binary file is open in Vim, you cannot really understand the data without looking at its hex dump. To view its hex dump using xxd:

:%!xxd

• To edit the binary file, edit the characters on the left side of the hex dump.

• To write the hex dump of the binary file:

:%!xxd -r

Tried with: Vim 8.1 and Ubuntu 20.04