Hexdump Utility

Overview

This project is a command-line utility written in Rust that reads a file and outputs its contents in little-endian hexadecimal format (hexdump). The program allows an optional argument to limit the number of bytes read from the file. It is modeled after the Linux implementation of hexdump.

Features

• Outputs the content of a file in a hexadecimal format, similar to the Linux hexdump command.
• Supports reading the full file or a specified number of bytes using the -n flag.
• Handles common errors such as invalid arguments or file errors gracefully.
• Includes unit tests for argument parsing and hexdump output.

Usage

./hexdump [-n LEN] FILE

• FILE: Path to the file to be read.
• -n LEN: Optional flag to specify the number of bytes to read from the file.

Examples

1. Read the entire file:

   ./hexdump file.txt

   This will print the entire contents of file.txt in hexadecimal format.

2. Read only the first 100 bytes:

   ./hexdump -n 100 file.txt

   This will limit the output to the first 100 bytes of file.txt.

Error Handling

• If incorrect usage is detected (e.g., missing file or -n flag without a valid length), an error message is printed and the program exits with status code 1.
• If an invalid length is provided for the -n flag, an error message is shown.

Example Output

For a file with the following content in bytes: 00 01 02 03:

00000000 0100 0302

For larger files, the output will be formatted in 16-byte chunks per line.

Dependencies

This utility depends on:

• std::env for argument handling.
• std::fs::File for file operations.
• std::io::{self, Read} for reading files and handling I/O.

Installation

1. Install Rust if you haven't already: https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install
2. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Gamacore/rust-hexdump.git

3. Navigate to the directory:

   cd rust-hexdump

4. Build the project:

   cargo build --release

5. Run the executable:

   ./target/release/hexdump [-n LEN] FILE

Running Tests

This project includes a suite of unit tests to ensure the correctness of the hexdump function and argument parsing. To run the tests, use:

cargo test

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.