Re: From Anxious StsAdmi: dd does't work with tape drive?????

[Bob Proulx]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> [2002-12-22 01:52:56 -0800]:
> Most likely dd is getting a partial block off the network, and then
> trying to write the partial block to the tape.  That is a no-no.
> 
> Try "obs=64k" instead of "bs=64k".

[And the original poster responded with success.]

Reading the documentation it says that bs overrides both ibs and obs.
I could use an education here.  Could you enlighten me as to how
setting obs only solves the problem when setting bs, which overrides
obs, does not?  What is the behavior of dd when ibs is not set that is
changed by having it set?

Perhaps an additional example in the doc with this posters specific
case explained would help.  I know that it would help me.

Also, the latest coreutils info documentation says:

    `swab'
          Swap every pair of input bytes.  GNU `dd', unlike others,
          works when an odd number of bytes are read--the last byte is
          simply copied (since there is nothing to swap it with).

That should be 'swap' not 'swab'.

Thanks
Bob