Re: [Wishlist] dd: per-block skip data option

[Paul Eggert]

"Theodoros V. Kalamatianos" <address@hidden> writes:

> iskip=N : skip N bytes before each input block
>
> iskiptail=N : skip N bytes after each input block
>
> oseek=N : seek N bytes before each output block
>
> oseektail=N : seek N bytes after each output block
>
> I guess N could also be in blocks, but for operations like the one I
> mentioned one would have to use an extremely small block size,
> resulting in a LOT of read/write syscalls.

Solaris dd already uses oseek= for something else, so different option
names should be chosen.  Perhaps ibskip= and obseek= for skipping
before each block (in effect, punning on ibs and iseek and obs and
oseek), and ibskiptail= and obseektail= for skipping after each block.
Or perhaps you can think of better names.

It'd be reasonable to have the units default to bytes instead of
blocks, just like ibs and obs do.

> Is there any hope of something like this being included in coreutils ?

It seems like a reasonable addition to me, though someone would have
to write it.  The documentation would be the hard part, I think.