gobindiff

A simple multi-platform tool to display two files in hexadecimal and highlight their differences.

gobindiff is heavily inspired by vbindiff, and it aims to be a drop-in replacement.

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Install

Install with Go SDK

1. Install Golang from your favourite package manager.
2. Invoke go install github.com/xeeynamo/gobindiff@latest

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/Xeeynamo/gobindiff.git
cd gobindiff
make install

Override vbindiff

If you want to temporarily replace vbindiff with gobindiff on Linux, create a sym-link:

sudo ln -s $(which gobindiff) /usr/local/bin/vbindiff

To uninstall, remove the sym-link:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/vbindiff

Features

• Support for files bigger than 4GB
• Small footprint (less than 3.0MB executable, 11MB memory usage when comparing >20GB files)
• Neutral colors that work on any terminal color scheme
• Reactive and resizable UI
• Multiple navigation keys
• Differ between multiple files

Keymap

• ESC or Q: exit from gobindiff
• Directional buttons: move columns and rows by a single unit
• Page Up/Down: move by a page
• Home or T: move to the top of the file(s)
• End or B: move to the bottom of the file(s)
• Enter: move to the next diff
• ALT+Enter: move to the previous diff
• +: display one more byte column
• -: display one less byte column
• 0: reset byte columns to fit the width of the window
• 1: do not group bytes
• 2: group every two bytes
• 3: group every three bytes
• 4: group every four bytes
• A: toggle ASCII view
• O: toggle offset view

Settings

hide_offsets

Hides the offset column on the left-hand side. Same effect as toggling it with 'O'.

Default: false

hide_ascii

Hides the ASCII column on the right-hand side. Same effect as toggling it with 'A'.

Default: false

bytes_per_row

How many bytes are displayed per row. Same effect as changing it with '0', '+' or '-'. A value of zero will fill the terminal width.

Default: 16

byte_group

Group multiple bytes before separating them with a space. Same effect as changing it with '1', '2', '3' or '4'.

Default: 1

# Linux settings path
~/.config/gobindiff/gobindiff.conf

# macOS settings path
~/Library/Application\ Support/gobindiff/gobindiff.conf

# Windows settings path
%APPDATA%\gobindiff\gobindiff.conf

# example of a configuration file
hide_offsets=false
hide_ascii=false
bytes_per_row=16
byte_group=1

Planned Features

• Go-to offset not implemented
• Optional different colors whenever the bytes are higher or lower
• Animation to better highlight different bytes at glance
• Set accent color other than red
• Set foreground color
• Set background color

Contribute

Use go run . FILE1 [FILE2]... to quickly iterate between changes. make install will install a development copy of gobindiff. make cross will generate the cross-platform binaries.