.\" Copyright (c) 2024 DTB <trinity@trinity.moe>
.\"
.\" This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To see a copy of this license,
.\" visit <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/>.

.TH swab 1

.SH NAME

swab \(en swap bytes

.SH SYNOPSIS

swab
.RB ( -f )
.RB ( -w
.R [
.B word size
.R ])

.SH USAGE

Swab swaps the latter and former halves of a block of bytes.

.SH EXAMPLES

The following sh(1p) line:

.R printf 'hello world!\n' | swab

Produces the following output:

.R ehll oowlr!d

.SH OPTIONS

The
.B -f
option ignores system call interruptions.
.PP
The
.B -w
option configures the word size; that is, the size in bytes of the block size
on which to operate. By default the word size is 2. The word size must be
cleanly divisible by 2, otherwise the block of bytes being processed can't be
halved.

.SH DIAGNOSTICS

If an error is encountered in input, output, or invocation, a diagnostic
message will be written to standard error and swab will exit with the
appropriate status from sysexits.h(3).

.SH RATIONALE

Swab was modeled after the
.R conv=swab
functionality specified in the POSIX dd utility but additionally allows the
word size to be configured.
.PP
Swab is useful for fixing the endianness of binary files produced on other
machines.

.SH COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2024 DTB. License AGPLv3+: GNU AGPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html>.

.SH SEE ALSO

dd(1p)