Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: dd curiosity Message-ID: <1990Jan1.080959.5104@twwells.com> Date: 1 Jan 90 08:09:59 GMT References: <396@zok.UUCP> <1989Dec30.233951.23096@twwells.com> <397@zok.UUCP> Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Lines: 33 In article <397@zok.UUCP> mark@zok.UUCP (Mark W. Snitily) writes: : Thanks for the suggestion, but quoting from the manual: : skip=n skips n input blocks before starting copy : seek=n seek n blocks from beginning of output file before copying : : "skip" applies to the input file. "seek" applies to the output file. : What I'd like to have is a "seek" performed on the input file. : Ideas anyone? Right you are. I got it in my head that both applied to the input file and just never checked. Now, back to the original problem.... Assuming that seekprog is something like this highly condensed version: main(argc, argv) char **argv; { extern long atol(), lseek(); return lseek(0, atol(argv[1]) * atol(argv[2]), 0) == -1; } Try: ( seekprog 20000 512 ; dd of=myfile )