Format-Hex

Format-Hex
    [-Path] <string[]>
    [<CommonParameters>]

Format-Hex
    -LiteralPath <string[]>
    [<CommonParameters>]

Format-Hex
    -InputObject <Object>
    [-Encoding <string>]
    [-Raw]
    [<CommonParameters>]

The Format-Hex cmdlet displays a file or other input as hexadecimal values. To determine the offset of a character from the output, add the number at the leftmost of the row to the number at the top of the column for that character.

The Format-Hex cmdlet can help you determine the file type of a corrupted file or a file that might not have a filename extension. You can run this cmdlet, and then read the hexadecimal output to get file information.

When using Format-Hex on a file, the cmdlet ignores newline characters and returns the entire contents of a file in one string with the newline characters preserved.

This command returns the hexadecimal values of a string.

'Hello World' | Format-Hex

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000   48 65 6C 6C 6F 20 57 6F 72 6C 64                 Hello World

The string Hello World is sent down the pipeline to the Format-Hex cmdlet. The hexadecimal output from Format-Hex shows the values of each character in the string.

This example uses the hexadecimal output to determine the file type. The cmdlet displays the file's full path and the hexadecimal values.

To test the following command, make a copy of an existing PDF file on your local computer and rename the copied file to File.t7f.

Format-Hex -Path .\File.t7f

           Path: C:\Test\File.t7f

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000   25 50 44 46 2D 31 2E 35 0D 0A 25 B5 B5 B5 B5 0D  %PDF-1.5..%????.
00000010   0A 31 20 30 20 6F 62 6A 0D 0A 3C 3C 2F 54 79 70  .1 0 obj..<</Typ
00000020   65 2F 43 61 74 61 6C 6F 67 2F 50 61 67 65 73 20  e/Catalog/Pages

The Format-Hex cmdlet uses the Path parameter to specify a filename in the current directory, File.t7f. The file extension .t7f is uncommon, but the hexadecimal output %PDF shows that it is a PDF file.

By default Format-Hex opts for compact output of numeric data types: single-byte or double-byte sequences are used if the value is small enough. The Raw parameter deactivates this behavior.

PS> 1,2,3,1000 | Format-Hex

           Path:

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000   01 02 03 E8 03                                   ...è.


PS> 1,2,3,1000 | Format-Hex -Raw

           Path:

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

00000000   01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 E8 03 00 00  ............è...

Notice the difference in output. The Raw parameter displays the numbers as 4-byte values, true to their Int32 types.

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -PipelineVariable, -ProgressAction, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.

You can pipe a string to this cmdlet.

This cmdlet returns a ByteCollection. This object represents a collection of bytes. It includes methods that convert the collection of bytes to a string formatted like each line of output returned by Format-Hex. If you specify the Path or LiteralPath parameter, the object also contains the path of the file that contains each byte.

Windows PowerShell includes the following aliases for Format-Hex:

• fhx

The right-most column of output tries to render the bytes as characters:

Generally, each byte is interpreted as a Unicode code point, which means that:

• Printable ASCII characters are always rendered correctly
• Multi-byte UTF-8 characters never render correctly
• UTF-16 characters render correctly only if their high-order byte happens be NUL.