Dd (Unix)

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dd (Data(set) Definition) is a shell command for reading, writing and converting file data. Originally developed for Unix, it has been implemented on many other environments including Unix-like operating systems, Windows, Plan 9 and Inferno. The command can be used for many purposes. For relatively simple copying operations, it tends to be slower than domain-specific alternatives, but it excels at overwriting or truncating a file at any point or seeking in a file. The command supports reading and writing files, and if a driver is available to support file-like access, the command can access devices too. Such access is typically supported on Unix-based systems that provide file-like access to devices (such as storage) and special device files (such as /dev/zero and /dev/random). Therefore, the command can be used for tasks such as backing up the boot sector of a drive, and obtaining random data. The command can also support converting data while copying, including byte order swapping...

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