Hi GNU standards maintainers, Jim Meyering wrote in [1] > use dd ibs=$n count=1 ... rather than less-portable head -c$n
The GNU standards, section "Utilities in Makefiles", do not mention 'dd' among the list of utilities whose existence can be assumed everywhere. But on all platforms that I tested (including old ones like IRIX 6.5, OSF/1 4.0, Solaris 2.5.1), 'dd' exists, and $ echo abcdef | dd ibs=4 count=1 2>/dev/null; echo yields the output abcd Therefore I would suggest to add 'dd' among the "safe" utilities. --- doc/make-stds.texi.orig 2008-05-14 23:15:34.000000000 +0200 +++ doc/make-stds.texi 2008-05-14 23:15:17.000000000 +0200 @@ -160,7 +160,7 @@ @c mkfifo mknod tee uname @example -awk cat cmp cp diff echo egrep expr false grep install-info +awk cat cmp cp dd diff echo egrep expr false grep install-info ln ls mkdir mv pwd rm rmdir sed sleep sort tar test touch true @end example Bruno [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2008-05/msg00067.html
