How to convert hex to ASCII characters in the Linux shell?

user_45226 0
Viewed 133497

Let's say that I have a string 5a.

This is the hex representation of the ASCII letter Z.

I need to find a Linux shell command which will take a hex string and output the ASCII characters that the hex string represents.

So if I do:

echo 5a | command_im_looking_for

I will see a solitary letter Z:

Z
encoding shell scripting linux bash
14 Answers

There is a simple shell command ascii.

If you use Ubuntu, install it with:

sudo apt install ascii

Then

ascii 0x5a

will output:

ASCII 5/10 is decimal 090, hex 5a, octal 132, bits 01011010: prints as `Z'
Official name: Majuscule Z
Other names: Capital Z, Uppercase Z
user_25824490

As per @Randal comment, you can use perl, e.g.

$ printf 5a5a5a5a | perl -lne 'print pack "H*", $_'
ZZZZ

and other way round:

$ printf ZZZZ | perl -lne 'print unpack "H*", $_'
5a5a5a5a

Another example with file:

$ printf 5a5a5a5a | perl -lne 'print pack "H*", $_' > file.bin
$ perl -lne 'print unpack "H*", $_' < file.bin
5a5a5a5a
user_550750

You can use this command (python script) for larger inputs:

echo 58595a | python -c "import sys; import binascii; print(binascii.unhexlify(sys.stdin.read().strip()).decode())"

The result will be:

XYZ

And for more simplicity, define an alias:

alias hexdecoder='python -c "import sys; import binascii; print(binascii.unhexlify(sys.stdin.read().strip()).decode())"'

echo 58595a | hexdecoder
user_12316030

Similar to my answer here: Linux shell scripting: hex number to binary string

You can do it with the same tool like this (using ascii printable character instead of 5a):

echo -n 616263 | cryptocli dd -decoders hex

Will produce the following result:

abcd
user_66368460
Related