Re: Preloading capability in linux ??///

[Anand Kumria <wildfire@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Nov 23, 2000 at 09:04:32AM -0800, Anmol Khirbat wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Nov 2000, Anand Kumria wrote:
> 
> > Do you want to create a bit-for-bit disk copy/image? I'd recommend
> > dd(1) then. 
> 
> What does dd do that cat can't do ?

$ man 1 cat | head
 cat - concatenate files and print on the standard output
$ man 1 dd | head
 dd - convert and copy a file

dd can read and write a file in blocks thus speeding up the transfer
whereas cat relies on the underlying C library to do it I/O.

dd can also convert from ascii to ebcdic, and do quite a few
other things. the man page is illuminating.

Anand
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