Navigation, inspection and modification of a loaded binary file is performed using three simple actions: seek (to position), print (buffer), and alternate (write, append).

If radare2 opens an executable file, by default it will open the file in Virtual Addressing (VA) mode and the sections will be mapped to their virtual addresses. In VA mode, seeking is based on the virtual address and the starting position is set to the entry point of the executable. Using -n option you can suppress this default behavior and ask radare2 to open the file in non-VA mode for you. In non-VA mode, seeking is based on the offset from the beginning of the file.

The ‘print’ command is abbreviated as p and has a number of submodes — the second letter specifying a desired print mode. Frequent variants include to print in hexadecimal, and pd for disassembling.

Appending a ? to a command will show its help message, for example, p?. Appending ?* will show commands starting with the given string, e.g. .

To enter visual mode, press V<enter>. Use q to quit visual mode and return to the prompt.

While in visual mode, you can also overwrite bytes by pressing i. You can press TAB to switch between the hex (middle) and string (right) columns. Pressing q inside the hex panel returns you to visual mode. By pressing p or you can scroll different visual mode representations. There is a second most important visual mode - curses-like panels interface, accessible with V! command.