xtool

A simple command line utility for encoding, decoding and hashing files.

Instead of having separate binaries for base32, base64, base85, hex, binary, sha256sum and sha512sum, xtool provides all of them in a single executable.

You can either use it as:

xtool <command>

or create symlinks and use it like regular coreutils commands:

base64 file.txt
sha256sum file.txt
hex -d dump.txt

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Features

• Base32 encode/decode
• Base64 encode/decode
• Base85 encode/decode
• Hex encode/decode
• Binary encode/decode
• SHA-256 checksums
• SHA-512 checksums
• Streaming processing for large files
• Supports stdin and file input
• Coreutils-style symlink dispatch
• Memory-mapped file reads where possible

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Installation

Build the project:

cargo build --release

The binary will be available at:

target/release/xtool

Create symlinks if you want to call the tool directly as base64, sha256sum, etc.

ln -s /path/to/xtool base32
ln -s /path/to/xtool base64
ln -s /path/to/xtool base85
ln -s /path/to/xtool hex
ln -s /path/to/xtool binary
ln -s /path/to/xtool sha256sum
ln -s /path/to/xtool sha512sum

Place the symlinks anywhere in your PATH.

The binary automatically detects which mode to run based on the name it was started with.

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Usage

Using xtool subcommands

xtool base64 file.txt
xtool base64 -d encoded.txt

xtool base32 file.txt
xtool base32 -d encoded.txt

xtool hex file.bin
xtool hex -d dump.txt

xtool binary file.bin
xtool binary -d bits.txt

xtool sha256sum file.txt
xtool sha512sum file.txt

Using symlinks

base64 file.txt
base64 -d encoded.txt

base32 file.txt
base32 -d encoded.txt

hex file.bin
hex -d dump.txt

binary file.bin
binary -d bits.txt

sha256sum file.txt
sha512sum file.txt

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Reading From Stdin

All commands support stdin.

Encode:

echo "hello" | xtool base64

Decode:

echo "aGVsbG8K" | xtool base64 -d

Hash:

cat file.txt | xtool sha256sum

You can also pass - explicitly:

cat file.txt | base64 -

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Supported Commands

Command	Description
base32	Encode or decode Base32
base64	Encode or decode Base64
base85	Encode or decode Base85
hex	Encode bytes to hex and decode hex back to bytes
binary	Encode bytes to binary and decode binary back to bytes
sha256sum	Print SHA-256 checksum
sha512sum	Print SHA-512 checksum

For encoding commands:

-d
--decode

switches from encoding mode to decoding mode.

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Examples

Encode a file as Base64

xtool base64 image.png > image.b64

Decode it back

xtool base64 -d image.b64 > image_restored.png

Generate SHA-256 checksum

xtool sha256sum file.txt

Output:

d2a84f4b8b650937ec8f73cd8be2c74add5a911ba64df27458ed8229da804a26  file.txt

Hash multiple files

xtool sha256sum file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

Convert text to binary

echo -n "hi" | xtool binary

Output:

0110100001101001

Convert hex back to text

echo "48656c6c6f" | xtool hex -d

Output:

Hello

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Notes

• Base32, Base64, Hex, Binary, SHA-256 and SHA-512 operate in streaming mode and process data in chunks.
• Large files can be processed without loading the entire file into memory.
• Base85 currently buffers the whole input because the underlying crate does not provide a streaming API.
• Encode/decode commands accept a single input file or stdin.
• SHA-256 and SHA-512 support multiple input files.

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Dependencies

See Cargo.toml

License

APACHE 2