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asciiubuntu-18.04hexdumplinefeed

Why does hexdump resolve 0x0A to a dot?


The question is based on the output of the following command:

$ hexdump -C acpid.pid
00000000  36 39 37 0a                                       |697.|
00000004

As expected, 0x36 0x39 0x37 are resolved to their associated symbols 6 9 7. Since 0x0A is a line feed their is no ordinary symbol to respresent it (according to the ASCII table), but

Why is 0x0A getting resolved to a dot?

My operating system is Ubuntu 18.04.3.


Solution

  • All the unprintable characters are showed as dots in the ASCII column. See e.g. the following printout of the bytes 0x00 to 0xff:

    $ for ((i=0; i<=255; ++i)); do printf "\x$(printf %x $i)"; done | hexdump -C
    00000000  00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07  08 09 0a 0b 0c 0d 0e 0f  |................|
    00000010  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17  18 19 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f  |................|
    00000020  20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27  28 29 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f  | !"#$%&'()*+,-./|
    00000030  30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37  38 39 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f  |0123456789:;<=>?|
    00000040  40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47  48 49 4a 4b 4c 4d 4e 4f  |@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO|
    00000050  50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57  58 59 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e 5f  |PQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_|
    00000060  60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67  68 69 6a 6b 6c 6d 6e 6f  |`abcdefghijklmno|
    00000070  70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77  78 79 7a 7b 7c 7d 7e 7f  |pqrstuvwxyz{|}~.|
    00000080  80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87  88 89 8a 8b 8c 8d 8e 8f  |................|
    00000090  90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97  98 99 9a 9b 9c 9d 9e 9f  |................|
    000000a0  a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7  a8 a9 aa ab ac ad ae af  |................|
    000000b0  b0 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7  b8 b9 ba bb bc bd be bf  |................|
    000000c0  c0 c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 c6 c7  c8 c9 ca cb cc cd ce cf  |................|
    000000d0  d0 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 d6 d7  d8 d9 da db dc dd de df  |................|
    000000e0  e0 e1 e2 e3 e4 e5 e6 e7  e8 e9 ea eb ec ed ee ef  |................|
    000000f0  f0 f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 f7  f8 f9 fa fb fc fd fe ff  |................|
    00000100