Intel HEX (.hex) Viewer/Readers

Question

Lately I've been doing a lot of work with Intel HEX files. I want a program that can import an Intel HEX file and allow me to view the byte contents at each address. There are a handful of programs I've seen that do this, but are there any that are good which are free and also allow you to see the contents at an absolute address, not a relative address to the start of the hex file (for example, if the intel hex file starts writing at address 200, the application should signify that addresses 0-199 are blank and not show as if it starts at address 0).

EDIT: So I posted this question quite a while ago and the best tool I've found is not really a tool meant to view HEX files, but Segger's J-Link Flash programming software. Its really meant to program chips, but it reads HEX files beautifully. Find it here: http://www.segger.com/cms/jlink-software.html

I'll keep the question open so folks can post their favorite intel HEX viewers

Answer 1

If you have access to a KDE computer you should try Okteta. It interprets hex in 3 or 4 formats at once. Very very nice, esp if you are looking at mixed meaning hex code.

Answer 2

I'd comment on the earlier answer, but can't yet.

WinHex will convert (Ctrl+R) to/from Intel format, and uses 0xff as the empty data value (as Binex does). It's also a fantastic tool if you need to do anything else with binaries or hard drive structures.

Hexplorer is a bit clunky, and strangely complains if there isn't a start address.

Answer 3

I've not used any of these, so I'm not sure if they meet your requirements or not:

Hexplorer

WinHex

There also seem to be some links at the bottom of the Intel HEX page on wikipedia.

Hope these give you some more starting points, although you've probably looked at them already.

Answer 4

I'm not familiar with the format of Intel hex files, but when I need to modify/view a binary I use XVI32.

Answer 5

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/intel-hex-mode.el

Answer 6

For linux systems you have:

• okteta (kde based)
• ghex / ghex2 (gnome)

Answer 7

I use Hex Editor Neo. It has some unique properties that make it useful for my particular brand of work, such as the ability to handle large files, unlimited undo/redo, and the ability to create patches. It can display data as bytes, words, double words, and floating point numbers.

I don't believe it has any awareness of the Intel Hex File format. It can make relative jumps, however. So if your file starts at address 200, you can jump absolute to your specified address, and then jump relative minus 200, and that should take you to the exact byte.

Answer 8

1. You could try converting the file to a plain old binary blob and then edit it with an ordinary "hex editor". It is suboptimal but since typical hex files contain less than a megabyte of data it should work.

2. For my simple needs the Vim build in syntax highlighting was sufficient. It colors different parts of the line so you won't mistake the address, type or checksum with data. Maybe it could be enhanced with the new 7.3 "conceal" feature to decode record types on the fly.

PS. I am really curious why would you need something like this. :)

Answer 9

Emacs, specifically with hexview-mode. Unfortunately it doesn't meet your offset viewer requirement.

Answer 10

For completeness, if you're on a Mac Hex Fiend is very good. Works well with very large files (~100GB) and allows all sorts of tricky editing.