Talk:Comparison of hex editors

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I think a very interesting and important feature that should be listed in the grid is whether each hex editor allows arbitrary insertions and deletions, or is limited to overwriting existing data. Unfortunately, I don't know how to gather this information about the listed editors.

-ridiculous_fish

[edit] Intel Hex (or Motorola S-Record) capability

Another feature that should be listed is whether the editor allows to read/write Intel HEX files. The Intel Hex or Motorola S-Record formats are examples of file formats which include address information. This allows to read/write non-contiguous areas (a must for embedded programming).

[edit] What do the headers mean?

"Maximum file size", "Bit editing", "Disassembler", and "Character encodings" are all obvious in meaning. But I'm confused about the others.

"Load file in memory" -- Does this mean it can load a file into memory, or load a file that is resident in memory?
"Disk editing" -- Does this mean the ability to edit system structure, or does it just have the "save to disk" operation..?
"Text editor" -- Emacs is a text editor, so are echo/cat. Is this refering to auto-wrapping lines, the ability to stick "all your base are belong to us" into a file (inserting characters?) or simply the ability to type in ASCII codes?
"Structure view" -- Structure of what, exactly?
"Choose font" -- This doesn't seem immediately useful to me. This is an informational wiki page, used for finding good hex editors. Typically, I'd assume that most anyone looking for a good hex editor is not going to care too much how pretty it is...
Sketch-The-Fox 17:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• The "Choose Font" column offers no benefit--Those looking for a hex editor are looking for features, not pretty graphics. Also, none of the DOS/Console hex editors could have fonts anyway. Sketch-The-Fox 05:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure my comments are any help, but here they are. ;^)

• I would guess that "load file in memory" means that the program loads the entire file into memory, which means it can't handle really large files very easy.
• I would guess that "disk editing" means that the user can edit files either directly on the disk, or can load portions of the file into memory and then rewrite the same segment.
• I would guess that "text editor" means you can type actual text using the keyboard (i.e. not have to encode all additions)
• I agree that "view structure" is ambiguous. Perhaps some programs attempt to determine the way the data is organized and/or the user can specify an organization and have the data displayed in those formats (e.g. a float followed by an int followed by ...)
• The advantage of "choose font" would be if the data were encoded in a different language (e.g. a Hebrew font)

You might consider checking the links for entries that have values for the fields in question. That might shed some light on whatever the original author was thinking. If I had more time, I would offer to help. :-( wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 14:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hex Edit listing is inaccurate

I only just discovered this page and I don't know how to edit it, or if I should being the creator of Hex Edit.

The entries for "Hex Edit" and "Hex Edit Free" are pretty obviously mine but I think there should be some way to distinguish programs (perhaps a web page address column) since there are/have been several editors called "Hex Edit". Actually I usually write the name of mine without a space as "HexEdit".

There are several inaccuracies in my listing:

- it does do disk editing (new in 3.1)

- it has always allowed individual bit editing (in Byte page of modeless Properties dialog by double-clicking individual bits in the binary view)

- I am not exactly sure what is meant by text editing but you can edit characters in the character area (in ASCII, EBCDIC etc)

- it has always provided an INS mode allowing inserting and deleting of bytes (in 3.0 this uses a new algorithm that avoids the need for temporary files)

- structure viewer - we invented the advanced template system that has been copied by other editors

- there is no disassembler (that is CORRECT)

Also it does provide Intel-hex and Motorola-S reading and writing, including discontiguous records as an option.

All of these features are also provided in the FREE version as well, except for the disk editor.