Xxd Command Not Found

macOS does not include xxd by default. If you have Homebrew installed, it’s straightforward:

brew install xxd

Alternatively, install vim:

brew install vim

For MacPorts users:

sudo port install xxd

sudo apk add xxd

echo "Hello" | xxd

Since xxd is part of the Vim distribution, installing Vim usually resolves the dependency.

Debian / Ubuntu / Kali Linux:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vim-common
# or simply
sudo apt-get install vim

Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora:

sudo dnf install vim-enhanced
# or for older systems
sudo yum install vim-enhanced

Arch Linux / Manjaro:

sudo pacman -S vim

Alpine Linux:

apk add vim

macOS: xxd is installed by default on macOS. If missing, install via Homebrew: xxd command not found

brew install vim

xxd is a small utility that creates a hex dump of a file or can convert a hex dump back to binary. If you see “xxd: command not found” it means your system doesn’t have it installed or it’s not in your PATH. Here’s how to resolve that across common platforms.

To prevent this issue in automated environments (e.g., CI/CD pipelines, Docker containers), ensure vim-common or vim is explicitly listed in the environment setup script or Dockerfile.

Example Dockerfile instruction:

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y vim-common

Once inside your WSL distribution (e.g., Ubuntu), follow the Linux instructions above (apt, dnf, etc.).