Re: xxd -i vs DIY Was: C23 thoughts and opinions

On Wed, 29 May 2024 21:31:54 +0100, bart wrote:

Conclusion: beating xxd is apparently not hard if even a scripting
language can do so. I wonder what slows it down?

It’s written in a very stdio-dependent vanilla C style.

Have a look at the source for yourself. It’s part of the “vim” package on
Debian and no doubt other distros. The xxd binary itself is built from a
single source file of just some 1200 lines, and the hex-to-binary
conversion is done in a function called “huntype” of just 133 lines.