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Comment by dTal | Hacker News Reader

No, it is arcane and bizarre. No other command line tool uses dd's syntax.

I really love when I can learn a tool and use it basically forever. In the case of DD, I have been using it since the 90s, and my printed URM from April 1985 lists dd with syntax that is still relevant today. So even if it doesn't fit the normal mold, I only had to learn it once.

Example?

I used dd a lot to burn images on USB. And that command is simple as expected.

I can't provide an example of something which doesn't exist, i.e. another program with dd's syntax.

I didn't say it wasn't simple. But it is very weird.

What's weird about a syntax as straightforward as 'command name' 'input file' 'output file'? How exactly would you do it differently?

If it were `dd input output` or `dd input -o output` no one would be claiming it's unique and bizarre. However the actual syntax is `dd if=input of=output` which is unique and (arguably) bizarre.

Unique, yes, and I'd even go as far as to say it's somewhat out of place on a Unix-like OS, but I have an easier time remembering "infile, outfile, block/batch size" than, say, arguments for tar due to its simplicity. I wouldn't call it bizarre because it's extremely straightforward.

I think what people see as weird is `dd bs=1024 if=/dev/sr0 of=/home/jason/sr0.iso`, instead of `dd --block-size 1024 --in-file /dev/sr0 --out-file /home/jason/sr0.iso`. It's a bit non-standard, but it's really not bad.

> "no other ..."

Do you realize that anyone can make a cli tool with whatever syntax they like? :) Also, see "man xm", which uses quite similar approach. And there are probably many other examples.

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