vbl is a terminal-based hexadecimal viewer for Linux that lets you inspect binary data from files and devices in a dynamic hex and ASCII interface.
It also works as a file differ, dumper, and editor, supports very large files and devices, and offers both interactive and command-line driven workflows for examining binary content. The program is designed to keep normal operation read-only, only switching to write access when edits are explicitly confirmed.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Supports ASCII and binary search with forward and backward navigation, case-insensitive matching, search history, and highlighted results.
- Offers flexible address navigation with decimal, hexadecimal, percentage, sector, and relative offset jumps.
- Includes comparison tools for moving to the next or previous difference, stepping through changed bytes, and synchronising two panes.
- Provides an edit mode with byte insertion, deletion, and copying, with explicit confirmation required before changes are written.
- Can dump file contents in ASCII or binary form directly from the command line.
- Builds dynamic, stripped, static, and static stripped executables with Meson.
Website: github.com/linuxCowboy/vbl
Support:
Developer: linuxCowboy
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
vbl is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Diff Tools | |
|---|---|
| difftastic | Structural diff tool that compares files based on their syntax |
| diff-so-fancy | Attractive diffs with diff-highlight and more |
| delta | Viewer for git and diff output |
| icdiff | An improved colored diff |
| diffoscope | In-depth comparison of files, archives, and directories |
| colordiff | Wrapper for diff with pretty syntax highlighting |
| diffsitter | Semantic diff tool |
| objdiff | Local diffing tool for decompilation project |
| ydiff | Tool to view colored, incremental diff in a version controlled workspace |
| diffr | Word-by-word diff highlighting utility |
| dyff | diff tool for YAML files |
| Wdiff | Wordwise implementation of diff |
| dwdiff | diff program that operates at the word level |
| oyo | Step-through diff viewer |
| diffyml | Compares YAML documents by their structure |
| diff2html-cli | Generate HTML diffs |
| biodiff | Terminal-based binary diff viewer |
| dirdiff | Compute the differences between two directories |
| csvdiff | Fast diff tool for comparing CSV files |
| VBinDiff | Visual binary diff |
| riff | Wrapper around diff |
| csv-diff | Diffing CSV and JSON files |
| xmldiff | Compare XML documents |
| vbl | Terminal-based hexadecimal viewer |
| Patdiff | File diff using the Patience Diff algorithm |
| dead-ringer | Binary diff utility |
| sesdiff | Generates a shortest edit script |
| semdiff | Semantic diff tool written in Rust |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |
test case: binary compare of two identical 3GB files with random data
cmp (Linux standard tool for binary compare) vs. vbl (vbindiff for linux)
vs.
(nettop)
on SSD:
cmp real 27.5 user 3.5 sys 12
vbl real 21.0 user 1.5 sys 10
on USB3:
cmp real 2m4 user 6.0 sys 26
vbl real 1m6 user 1.6 sys 16
on USB2:
cmp real 4m18 user 7.3 sys 33
vbl real 3m10 user 1.6 sys 25
The posted figures aren’t rigorous enough to rely on.
Interesting result, but it would be worth repeating with reversed order, dropped page cache, multiple runs, and
vbl file1 file2 --for the non-interactive diff-return mode.