Question

was wondering if anyone could help me with converting ascii to hex in bash.
Example code:

#!/bin/bash 
STR = "hello"
#Convert to hex
HEXVAL = $STR #(in hex here?)

I want hexval to have the value:
68656C6C6F (hello in hex)

Answer 1

$ str="hello"
$ hex="$(printf '%s' "$str" | xxd -p -u)"
$ echo "$hex"
68656C6C6F

Or:

$ hex="$(printf '%s' "$str" | hexdump -ve '/1 "%02X"')"
$ echo "$hex"
68656C6C6F

Careful with the '"%X"'; it has both single quotes and double quotes.