Re: dd PATCH: add conv=direct

[Paul Eggert]

James Antill <address@hidden> writes:

>>   dd has new iflags= and oflags= options with the following flags:
>>
>>     nonblock  use non-blocking I/O
>
> What is this supposed to do when it gets EWOULDBLOCK? There seems to
> be no change in the read/write code. So I can only assume it fails
> with an error code

Yes, that's what it does.

> which seems like the worst behaviour possible.

Its only current use that I can see is to have "dd" refuse to block.
I can think of uses for that but admittedly they're not something that
I would do often.

What would be better behavior?  That is, what uses should "dd" make of
that flag?