How do I see a bin file in a hex editor in Visual Studio Code?

Question

I have a bin file holding all my instruction cache and data cache for my Verilog project, and I want to see it as the Notepad++ hex editor shows its meaning, hex representation view. Is there a way to configure this?

Or maybe an extension that provides this functionality?

Ambages

Asking for external links is off topic. Besides, it's easy to find an extension for vscode that does what you want – Gantt

no i tried that extension and it doesnt let me see a .bin file also if you have a way to make it work without external extension it will be much better – Ambages

You want marketplace.visualstudio.com/… – Socialism

10x but as i said before it translate string to hex format and not a bin file . also it cant process big files (6mb) – Ambages

Answer 1

VSCode 1.46 (May 2020) will have its own native Hex Editor extension:

Hex Editor

With the custom editor API finalized with support for binary editors, we have developed a hex editor extension to provide a native hex editing experience.

Arevalo

Unfortunately, this doesn't necessarily solve the problem of viewing a binary file as it doesn't work if the file isn't writable. – Aeneid

@JesperMatthiesen I did not realize that. A possible workaround would be to copy/duplicate the file, taking ownership and making that copy writable. – Arevalo

Answer 2

1. Install this extension: Hexdump for VSCode. It can display a specified file in hexadecimal.

2. Open the file/image/whatever you want to display in hex mode in Visual Studio Code, then press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + H.

3. Or press Ctrl + P then input Show hexdump from path to open a file in hex mode directly.

Transpolar

Thanks for including the magic keys. I had already installed the extension, but had no idea how to activate it. – Antenna

hex dump is good, but it really suffers with larger files and does not allow editing. Is there anything like that? – Smith

How do I copy the hex dump without getting stuff like line number and the preview to the right of the hex dump? – Rifle

Hexdump is deprecated. They suggest using Hex Editor by microsoft. – Blake

this extension is deprecated. Use Hex Editor of VS Code. – Crt

Answer 3

Hexdump has been deprecated. The alternative right now is Hex Editor by Microsoft.

Hex Editor OR ext install ms-vscode.hexeditor

Pisolite

Answer 4

1. Install Hex Editor
2. Then open the file you want to edit in VS Code
3. It will say you cannot open the file in here (if it's binary file), Select Open Anyway
4. Select Hex Editor from the Command Panel
5. You should see something similar to this:

Padraic