dd1
Convert and copy a file
Usage
dd [OPERAND] ...
dd OPTION
Overview
Copy a file, converting and formatting according to the operands.
bs=BYTES-
read and write up to BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512); overrides ibs and obs
cbs=BYTES-
convert BYTES bytes at a time
conv=CONVS-
convert the file as per the comma separated symbol list
count=N-
copy only N input blocks
ibs=BYTES-
read up to BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512)
if=FILE-
read from FILE instead of standard input
iflag=FLAGS-
read as per the comma separated symbol list
obs=BYTES-
write BYTES bytes at a time (default: 512)
of=FILE-
write to FILE instead of standard output
oflag=FLAGS-
write as per the comma separated symbol list
seek=N-
(or oseek=N) skip N obs sized output blocks
skip=N-
(or iseek=N) skip N ibs sized input blocks
status=LEVEL-
The LEVEL of information to print to standard error; 'none' suppresses everything but error messages, 'noxfer' suppresses the final transfer statistics, 'progress' shows periodic transfer statistics
N and BYTES may be followed by the following multiplicative suffixes: c=1, w=2, b=512, kB=1000, K=1024, MB=1000*1000, M=1024*1024, xM=M, GB=1000*1000*1000, G=1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y, R, Q. Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on. If N ends in 'B', it counts bytes not blocks.
Each CONV symbol may be:
- ascii
-
from EBCDIC to ASCII
- ebcdic
-
from ASCII to EBCDIC
- ibm
-
from ASCII to alternate EBCDIC
- block
-
pad newline-terminated records with spaces to cbs-size
- unblock
-
replace trailing spaces in cbs-size records with newline
- lcase
-
change upper case to lower case
- ucase
-
change lower case to upper case
- sparse
-
try to seek rather than write all-NUL output blocks
- swab
-
swap every pair of input bytes
- sync
-
pad every input block with NULs to ibs-size; when used with block or unblock, pad with spaces rather than NULs
- excl
-
fail if the output file already exists
- nocreat
-
do not create the output file
- notrunc
-
do not truncate the output file
- noerror
-
continue after read errors
- fdatasync
-
physically write output file data before finishing
- fsync
-
likewise, but also write metadata
Each FLAG symbol may be:
append
|
append mode (makes sense only for output; conv=notrunc suggested) |
|---|---|
direct
|
use direct I/O for data |
directory
|
fail unless a directory |
dsync
|
use synchronized I/O for data |
sync
|
likewise, but also for metadata |
fullblock
|
accumulate full blocks of input (iflag only) |
nonblock
|
use non-blocking I/O |
noatime
|
do not update access time |
nocache
|
Request to drop cache. See also oflag=sync |
noctty
|
do not assign controlling terminal from file |
nofollow
|
do not follow symlinks |
Sending a USR1 signal to a running 'dd' process makes it print I/O statistics to standard error and then resume copying.
Options are:
-
--help -
display this help and exit
-
--version -
output version information and exit
Releases
19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 15 times.