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> more standard Unix tools Sure sign that the post wasn't researched at all, since dd is one of the very oldest UNIX utilities and is even in the POSIX standar
by notacoward 4y ago
> more standard Unix tools
Sure sign that the post wasn't researched at all, since dd is one of the very oldest UNIX utilities and is even in the POSIX standard.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/dd.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/d...
The "pv" command they recommend instead is, by contrast, not standard and is nowhere near universally available. Also, as just about any not-a-noob knows, the author's "cat" suggestion will not work on devices that expect whole blocks, except perhaps by accident ... and it's not a good habit to rely on accidents. Options like skip and seek also allow you to do things like write a single block at an arbitrary location, which can be very useful sometimes and is something cat/head/etc. can't do.
Reacting to anything one doesn't understand, without even trying to understand it, as strange or obscure or weird (all their words) is a very deeply incurious attitude. That kind of crap doesn't even belong here, per guidelines.
P.S. Hey kid, learn how to use a proper link instead of a Wikipedia title.
- ufo 4y agoI think that the article meant "standard" in the colloquial sense, not in the POSIX sense.
- notacoward 4y agoTo the extent that "standard in the colloquial sense" even makes sense, it's still wrong because "head" (the proposed alternative) is no more common or well understood than dd, and "pv" is far less so.
- version_five 4y agoThat probably depends on the user. I use head every day, I can't think of the last time I used dd. Agree with you on pv, I don't believe I've ever used it - I've seen it around occasionally but it's never top of mind the rare time I might want it
- dfc 4y agoUsing standard as an adjective to mean "used or accepted as normal or average" or "usual, common, or customary" makes a lot of sense. I just came back from touring my buddy's new woodshop. When people ask how it looks I will say "he has your standard set of woodshop tools." Nobody is going to wonder if it's an ISO, or ANSI standard set of woodshop tools.
- kelnos 4y agoIf we go by your definition, then 'dd' is absolutely "standard", and 'pv' absolutely is not.
- ufo 4y agoThe point here is that dd is the weird one out that has a different command line syntax than everything else. Not about whether it's installed by default. (Let's not get distracted by the pv bit; dd's status=progress isn't POSIX either)
- SulphurCrested 4y agoI don't believe it's that. On macOS Monterey: $ which pv pv not found I've been using Unixes of various flavours since the 1980s and had never heard of it until I read this article. It's certainly more obscure to me – as in not discoverable at all – than dd status=progress. Apparently I've been slumming it by watching long jobs using Activity Monitor on macOS.
- kelnos 4y agoI don't have 'pv' installed on my Debian system, and had never heard of it before. 'dd' is installed by default and I've been using it for decades.