The Format-Hex cmdlet displays a file or other input as hexadecimal values. To determine the offset of a character
from the output, add the number at the leftmost of the row to the number at the top of the column for that
character.
This cmdlet can help you determine the file type of a corrupted file or a file which may not have a file name
extension. Run this cmdlet, and then inspect the results for file information.
PARAMETERS
-Encoding
Specifies the type of character encoding used in the file that this cmdlet formats as hexadecimal. The
acceptable values for this parameter are:
- Ascii
- UTF32
- UTF7
- UTF8
- BigEndianUnicode
- Unicode
The default value is Unicode.
Required? false
Position? named
Default value None
Accept pipeline input? False
Accept wildcard characters? false
-InputObject
{{Fill InputObject Description}}
Required? true
Position? named
Default value None
Accept pipeline input? True (ByValue)
Accept wildcard characters? false
-LiteralPath
Specifies an array of literal paths of items. This parameter does not accept wildcard characters. To use
wildcard characters, specify the Path parameter instead.
If this parameter includes escape characters, enclose the path in single quotation marks. Windows PowerShell
does not interpret any characters in a single quoted string as escape sequences. For more information, type
`Get-Help about_Quoting_Rules`.
Required? true
Position? named
Default value None
Accept pipeline input? False
Accept wildcard characters? false
-Path
Specifies an array of paths of items. This cmdlet returns a hexadecimal representation of the items that this
parameter specifies.
Use a dot (.) to specify the current location. Use the wildcard character (*) to specify all the items in the
current location.
Required? true
Position? 0
Default value None
Accept pipeline input? False
Accept wildcard characters? false
-Raw []
@{Text=}
Required? false
Position? named
Default value False
Accept pipeline input? False
Accept wildcard characters? false
This cmdlet supports the common parameters: Verbose, Debug,
ErrorAction, ErrorVariable, WarningAction, WarningVariable,
OutBuffer, PipelineVariable, and OutVariable. For more information, see
about_CommonParameters (https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113216).
INPUTS
System.String
You can pipe a string to this cmdlet.
OUTPUTS
Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.ByteCollection
This cmdlet returns a ByteCollection . This object represents a collection of bytes. It includes methods that
convert the collection of bytes to a string formatted like each line of output returned by Format-Hex . If you
specify the Path or LiteralPath parameter, the object also contains the path of the file that contains each
byte.
NOTES
Example 1: Get the hexadecimal representation of a string
PS C:\>"Hello World" | Format-Hex
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00000000 48 65 6C 6C 6F 20 57 6F 72 6C 64 Hello World
This command returns the hexadecimal representation of the string Hello World.