dd(1M) System Administration Commands dd(1M)NAMEdd - convert and copy a file
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/dd [operand=value...]
DESCRIPTION
The dd utility copies the specified input file to the specified output
with possible conversions. The standard input and output are used by
default. The input and output block sizes may be specified to take
advantage of raw physical I/O. Sizes are specified in bytes; a number
may end with k, b, or w to specify multiplication by 1024, 512, or 2,
respectively. Numbers may also be separated by x to indicate multipli‐
cation.
The dd utility reads the input one block at a time, using the specified
input block size. dd then processes the block of data actually
returned, which could be smaller than the requested block size. dd
applies any conversions that have been specified and writes the result‐
ing data to the output in blocks of the specified output block size.
cbs is used only if ascii, asciib, unblock, ebcdic, ebcdicb, ibm, ibmb,
or block conversion is specified. In the first two cases, cbs charac‐
ters are copied into the conversion buffer, any specified character
mapping is done, trailing blanks are trimmed, and a NEWLINE is added
before sending the line to output. In the last three cases, characters
up to NEWLINE are read into the conversion buffer and blanks are added
to make up an output record of size cbs. ASCII files are presumed to
contain NEWLINE characters. If cbs is unspecified or 0, the ascii,
asciib, ebcdic, ebcdicb, ibm, and ibmb options convert the character
set without changing the input file's block structure. The unblock and
block options become a simple file copy.
After completion, dd reports the number of whole and partial input and
output blocks.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
if=file
Specifies the input path. Standard input is the default.
of=file
Specifies the output path. Standard output is the default. If the
seek=expr conversion is not also specified, the output file will be
truncated before the copy begins, unless conv=notrunc is specified.
If seek=expr is specified, but conv=notrunc is not, the effect of
the copy will be to preserve the blocks in the output file over
which dd seeks, but no other portion of the output file will be
preserved. (If the size of the seek plus the size of the input file
is less than the previous size of the output file, the output file
is shortened by the copy.)
ibs=n
Specifies the input block size in n bytes (default is 512).
obs=n
Specifies the output block size in n bytes (default is 512).
bs=n
Sets both input and output block sizes to n bytes, superseding ibs=
and obs=. If no conversion other than sync, noerror, and notrunc is
specified, each input block is copied to the output as a single
block without aggregating short blocks.
cbs=n
Specifies the conversion block size for block and unblock in bytes
by n (default is 0). If cbs= is omitted or given a value of 0,
using block or unblock produces unspecified results.
This option is used only if ASCII or EBCDIC conversion is speci‐
fied. For the ascii and asciib operands, the input is handled as
described for the unblock operand except that characters are con‐
verted to ASCII before the trailing SPACE characters are deleted.
For the ebcdic, ebcdicb, ibm, and ibmb operands, the input is han‐
dled as described for the block operand except that the characters
are converted to EBCDIC or IBM EBCDIC after the trailing SPACE
characters are added.
files=n
Copies and concatenates n input files before terminating (makes
sense only where input is a magnetic tape or similar device).
skip=n
Skips n input blocks (using the specified input block size) before
starting to copy. On seekable files, the implementation reads the
blocks or seeks past them. On non-seekable files, the blocks are
read and the data is discarded.
iseek=n
Seeks n blocks from beginning of input file before copying (appro‐
priate for disk files, where skip can be incredibly slow).
oseek=n
Seeks n blocks from beginning of output file before copying.
seek=n
Skips n blocks (using the specified output block size) from begin‐
ning of output file before copying. On non-seekable files, existing
blocks are read and space from the current end-of-file to the spec‐
ified offset, if any, is filled with null bytes. On seekable files,
the implementation seeks to the specified offset or reads the
blocks as described for non-seekable files.
count=n
Copies only n input blocks.
conv=value[,value...]
Where values are comma-separated symbols from the following list:
ascii Converts EBCDIC to ASCII.
asciib Converts EBCDIC to ASCII using BSD-compatible char‐
acter translations.
ebcdic Converts ASCII to EBCDIC. If converting fixed-
length ASCII records without NEWLINEs, sets up a
pipeline with dd conv=unblock beforehand.
ebcdicb Converts ASCII to EBCDIC using BSD-compatible char‐
acter translations. If converting fixed-length
ASCII records without NEWLINEs, sets up a pipeline
with dd conv=unblock beforehand.
ibm Slightly different map of ASCII to EBCDIC. If con‐
verting fixed-length ASCII records without NEW‐
LINEs, sets up a pipeline with dd conv=unblock
beforehand.
ibmb Slightly different map of ASCII to EBCDIC using
BSD-compatible character translations. If convert‐
ing fixed-length ASCII records without NEWLINEs,
sets up a pipeline with dd conv=unblock beforehand.
The ascii (or asciib), ebcdic (or ebcdicb), and ibm (or ibmb) val‐
ues are mutually exclusive.
block Treats the input as a sequence of NEWLINE-termi‐
nated or EOF-terminated variable-length records
independent of the input block boundaries. Each
record is converted to a record with a fixed length
specified by the conversion block size. Any NEWLINE
character is removed from the input line. SPACE
characters are appended to lines that are shorter
than their conversion block size to fill the block.
Lines that are longer than the conversion block
size are truncated to the largest number of charac‐
ters that will fit into that size. The number of
truncated lines is reported.
unblock Converts fixed-length records to variable length.
Reads a number of bytes equal to the conversion
block size (or the number of bytes remaining in the
input, if less than the conversion block size),
delete all trailing SPACE characters, and append a
NEWLINE character.
The block and unblock values are mutually exclusive.
lcase Maps upper-case characters specified by the
LC_CTYPE keyword tolower to the corresponding
lower-case character. Characters for which no map‐
ping is specified are not modified by this conver‐
sion.
ucase Maps lower-case characters specified by the
LC_CTYPE keyword toupper to the corresponding
upper-case character. Characters for which no map‐
ping is specified are not modified by this conver‐
sion.
The lcase and ucase symbols are mutually exclusive.
swab Swaps every pair of input bytes. If the current
input record is an odd number of bytes, the last
byte in the input record is ignored.
noerror Does not stop processing on an input error. When an
input error occurs, a diagnostic message is written
on standard error, followed by the current input
and output block counts in the same format as used
at completion. If the sync conversion is specified,
the missing input is replaced with null bytes and
processed normally. Otherwise, the input block will
be omitted from the output.
notrunc Does not truncate the output file. Preserves blocks
in the output file not explicitly written by this
invocation of dd. (See also the preceding of=file
operand.)
sync Pads every input block to the size of the ibs= buf‐
fer, appending null bytes. (If either block or
unblock is also specified, appends SPACE charac‐
ters, rather than null bytes.)
If operands other than conv= are specified more than once, the last
specified operand=value is used.
For the bs=, cbs=, ibs=, and obs= operands, the application must supply
an expression specifying a size in bytes. The expression, expr, can be:
1. a positive decimal number
2. a positive decimal number followed by k, specifying multiplication
by 1024
3. a positive decimal number followed by b, specifying multiplication
by 512
4. two or more positive decimal numbers (with or without k or b) sepa‐
rated by x, specifying the product of the indicated values.
All of the operands will be processed before any input is read.
USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of dd when encoun‐
tering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes).
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Copying from one tape drive to another
The following example copies from tape drive 0 to tape drive 1, using a
common historical device naming convention.
example% dd if=/dev/rmt/0h of=/dev/rmt/1h
Example 2: Stripping the first 10 bytes from standard input
The following example strips the first 10 bytes from standard input:
example% dd ibs=10 skip=1
Example 3: Reading a tape into an ASCII file
This example reads an EBCDIC tape blocked ten 80-byte EBCDIC card
images per block into the ASCII file x:
example% dd if=/dev/tape of=x ibs=800 cbs=80 conv=ascii,lcase
Example 4: Using conv=sync to write to tape
The following example uses conv=sync when writing to a tape:
example% tar cvf - . | compress | dd obs=1024k of=/dev/rmt/0 conv=sync
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of dd: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 The input file was copied successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
If an input error is detected and the noerror conversion has not been
specified, any partial output block will be written to the output file,
a diagnostic message will be written, and the copy operation will be
discontinued. If some other error is detected, a diagnostic message
will be written and the copy operation will be discontinued.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWcsu │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Standard │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcp(1), sed(1), tr(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), stan‐
dards(5)DIAGNOSTICS
f+p records in(out) numbers of full and partial blocks read(writ‐
ten)
NOTES
Do not use dd to copy files between file systems having different block
sizes.
Using a blocked device to copy a file will result in extra nulls being
added to the file to pad the final block to the block boundary.
When dd reads from a pipe, using the ibs=X and obs=Y operands, the
output will always be blocked in chunks of size Y. When bs=Z is used,
the output blocks will be whatever was available to be read from the
pipe at the time.
When using dd to copy files to a tape device, the file size must be a
multiple of the device sector size (for example, 512 Kbyte). To copy
files of arbitrary size to a tape device, use tar(1) or cpio(1).
For SIGINT, dd writes status information to standard error before exit‐
ing. It takes the standard action for all other signals.
SunOS 5.10 16 Sep 1996 dd(1M)
