"dd conv=unblock cbs=80 "

Mike McNamara mac at esl.UUCP
Sat Jul 23 09:42:33 AEST 1988


	People have noted that HP-UX does not document the block/unblock
   conversion options in dd.  
	Our system (CYDROME) is also a system V R3 derivitive, and since
   I was educated :-) on berkeley systems, I would always just type out
   dd if=/dev/rmt0 ibs=64k cbs=80 conv=unblock to read blocked tapes, until
   one day a guy complained that he couldn't read such a tape, cause there 
   where no newlines.  I told him, "use dd; type <the above>; its in the man
   page."
	It isn't in any ATT man page.

	/bin/dd never read the man page, and fully supports the undocumented
   cbs and conv=unblock/block options.

	So many companies license Unix from AT&T or berkeley, and just run
   the man pages through sed -e 's/AT&T/Tadpole Computer/' , and ship it.
   (It can be quite humerous to see man pages talking about "The -6 switch
   allows tar to read Tadpole Computer Version 6 tapes" :-)


	I guess the only trustworthy documentation is in the source :-)

	-mac

-- 
 Michael Mc Namara                 
 Cydrome Incorporated                 
 ARPA: esl!cydrome!mac at ames.arpa    



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