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    to find out what a command does, read its man page...don't just randomly run it - in many/most cases, that will be harmless. in some cases, it could alter or even wipe your input file. or much worse. e.g. run man xxd to find out what xxd does. Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 16:46
  • @cas, though, the man page for xxd doesn't really describe what the output is, it just assumes the user knows what a common hexdump looks like :) Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 16:49
  • True, but "hexdump" is such a basic, well-known term that it's self-explanatory. or should be :-). BTW, I generally use hexdump -C or hd rather than xxd - more flexible output options and, IMO, better documented. Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 16:54
  • hexdump is probably not self-explanatory but it can be looked up. Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 18:24
  • That what I miss most from my Ultrix days; man had examples of commands. Commented Feb 4, 2018 at 23:14