Lesson plan
Hex editor
A hex (short for hexadecimal), binary, or byte editor is software that allows for editing data as binary data. It is particularly useful for editing non-human-readable data of a file, but can be used for any data. Generally, a hex editor is a standalone program, and its user experience is similar to that of a text editor. A user can see and edit the raw and exact contents of a file, as opposed to the interpretation of the content that other, higher level application software may associate with the file format. For example, this could be the data bytes that represent an image instead of a graphical representation. Generally, data is grouped in 4 groups of 4 bytes or 2 groups of 8 bytes, followed by one group of 16 printable ASCII characters which correspond to each pair of hex values (each byte). Non-printable ASCII characters are typically represented by a dot (".") in the ASCII field. A hex editor is sometimes used to fix data corruption problems. It can be useful to bypass application edit checks which may prevent correction of erroneous data. It has been used to "patch" executable programs (change or add a few instructions) as an alternative to recompilation. Program fixes for IBM mainframe systems are sometimes distributed as patches rather than distributing a complete copy of the affected program.
Article summary
A hex (short for hexadecimal), binary, or byte editor is software that allows for editing data as binary data. It is particularly useful for editing non-human-readable data of a file, but can be used for any data. Generally, a hex editor is a standalone program, and its user experience is similar to that of a text editor. A user can see and edit the raw and exact contents of a file, as opposed to the interpretation of the content that other, higher level application software may associate with the file format. For example, this could be the data bytes that represent an image instead of a graphical representation. Generally, data is grouped in 4 groups of 4 bytes or 2 groups of 8 bytes, followed by one group of 16 printable ASCII characters which correspond to each pair of hex values (each byte). Non-printable ASCII characters are typically represented by a dot (".") in the ASCII field. A hex editor is sometimes used to fix data corruption problems. It can be useful to bypass application edit checks which may prevent correction of erroneous data. It has been used to "patch" executable programs (change or add a few instructions) as an alternative to recompilation. Program fixes for IBM mainframe systems are sometimes distributed as patches rather than distributing a complete copy of the affected program.
Key claims
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.