Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks

Description

Prints the contents of a file to standard output in a variety of formats. (If no filename is specified, it acts on the contents of standard input.) The name is an acronym for octal dump , from its default behavior of displaying files as series of octal numbers .

od has been deprecated in favor of hexdump ; in fact, the two binaries are hard-linked to the same data. However, traditional od syntax applies when invoked by that name. See the hexdump manpage for more.

Options/Usage

-a

Displays content in 1-byte chunks of ASCII characters, hexadecimal numbers, and short strings representing control characters .

-b

Displays content in 1-byte chunks of octal numbers.

-B

Displays content in 2-byte chunks of octal numbers. This option is the default.

-c

Displays content in 1-byte chunks of ASCII characters, octal numbers, and escape sequences representing control characters. This is probably the most commonly used option.

-d

Displays content in 2-byte chunks of unsigned decimal integers.

-D

Displays content in 4-byte chunks of unsigned decimal integers.

-e

Displays content in 8-byte chunks of decimal floating-point numbers.

-f

Displays content in 4-byte chunks of decimal floating-point numbers.

-F

Same as - e .

-h

Displays content in 2-byte chunks of hexadecimal numbers.

-H

Displays content in 4-byte chunks of hexadecimal numbers.

-i

Displays content in 2-byte chunks of signed decimal integers.

-I

Displays content in 4-byte chunks of signed decimal integers.

-l

Same as - I .

-L

Same as - I .

-o

Same as - B .

-O

Displays content in 4-byte chunks of octal numbers.

-v

Disables the suppression of duplicate lines, which are normally represented by a single asterisk.

-x

Same as - h .

-X

Same as - H .

Location

/usr/bin