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0xdiff (npmjs 🔗)

Zero dependency CLI tool to diff binary files.

Requirements

  • shell (WSL2 on Windows)
  • node >= 18.17.1
  • vscode

Install

npm i -g 0xdiff

Usage

0xdiff 1.0.1
Converts bin file to diffable text and starts `code --diff`

Usage: 0xdiff [options] <file> <file>

Options
  -b --bytes-per-row <bytes>                        [1, 2, 4, (8), 16, 32, 64].
  -s --max-size <size>                              MB max file size for compare(1).
  -k --keep                                         Do not discard temp files on exit.
  -d --debug <Double|Float|(Big)(U)Int(16|32|64)>   Displays value for each hex row.
  -e --endianness <l | little | b | big>            Only used with -d (little)
  -h --help                                         Display this help text.

Git Diff

The cli tool does not feature git diffs natively at this point.
You can utilize the git cat-file command to achieve this for now.

git cat-file -p <SHA>:<FILE> > <FILE>.tmp \
&& 0xdiff <FILE>.tmp <FILE> \
&& rm <FILE>.tmp

Append it as a shell function in your .bashrc:

gitxdiff() {
  sha="${@: -2:1}"
  file="${@: -1}"
  opts="${@:1:$#-2}" 
  git cat-file -p $sha:$file > $file.tmp \
  && 0xdiff $opts $file.tmp $file \
  && rm $file.tmp
}

Demo

Git diff between checked in file and local changes:

gitxdiff HEAD README.md

Options

--bytes-per-row

Use this option to change how to diff your binary data.

--bytes-per-row 4

--bytes-per-row 16

--max-size

OBS❗
This application was developed with small binary files in mind, which is why the hacky solution of using the text diff tool works.
Converting binary files to utf-8 text files like this effectively makes them 300% larger in size. Doing diff on large files consumes a lot of processing and memory resources, specially if there are also many changes which is often the case with binary files.

The --max-size is an override to the 1MB precautionary max size.

You can increase the amount of time that vscode will compute the diff with the following vscode setting:

{
  // Timeout in milliseconds after which diff computation is cancelled. Use 0 for no timeout.
  "diffEditor.maxComputationTime": 5000
}

--debug

If you want to debug the value of each row.
Note that the bit of the chosen debug format can not be greater than the bits represented on each row, as set with the --bytes-per-row option, see table.

format -b
BigInt64 8
BigUInt64 8
Double 8
Float 4
Int16 2
Int32 4
UInt16 2
UInt32 4

--debug Float

--debug Int16

--endianness

This option is only used with the --debug option.
If you are working with binary files you probably know what to do with this option.

--keep

Stop 0xdiff from removing the temporary files when exiting.
Please note that this option will leave dangling files in your OS temp directory.