Linux File Converting/Copying

Introduction

Welcome to the year 2075, in an era where competitive technological gaming has reached new heights, and technology engineers are revered for their wizardry in handling complex systems. You are an up-and-coming Future Tech Engineer, competing in the annually held Tech Grand Tournament—an event where the sharpest minds tackle intricate challenges using aging and new technology alike. This year's competition revolves around mastering the Linux command line, and your first task is to demonstrate your prowess with the dd command.

The objective of the scenario is to transform and replicate filesystem data, a skill crucial for maintaining the data integrity of legacy systems that are interwoven with futuristic tech infrastructure. Your goal is to convert and copy files between different filesystems, preserving their structure and ensuring their usability post transformation. This Lab will pave the way for you to outshine your competitors, with captivating scenarios that most simulate intense real-world tech challenges.

Skills Graph

Understanding the dd Command

In this step, you will be introduced to the dd command, a powerful utility that can be used for converting and copying files. You'll start by creating a sample file and then use dd to make a byte-for-byte copy of this file to a new location.

Create a sample file named example.txt in your current project directory using the echo command:

echo "This is a sample file for the dd command." > ~/project/example.txt

Now, you'll use the dd command to copy this file to a new file named example_copy.txt:

dd if=./example.txt of=./example_copy.txt

The if= parameter specifies the input file (file to be copied), while the of= parameter specifies the output file (destination of the copy). Here's what you should see after executing the command:

0+1 records in
0+1 records out
42 bytes copied, 0.000518813 s, 81.0 kB/s

The dd command should report the number of bytes copied, and you can confirm the copy was successful by checking the contents of example_copy.txt:

cat ~/project/example_copy.txt

Converting File Format with dd

Continuing on, you will learn how to change the case of text within a file using dd. First, we'll create a new file with mixed case content.

Create a new file called mixed_case.txt:

echo "Linux Lab with DD Command" > ~/project/mixed_case.txt

Now, convert the uppercase to lowercase by running:

dd if=mixed_case.txt of=lower_case.txt conv=lcase

In this command, conv=lcase is the parameter that instructs dd to convert all uppercase letters to lowercase during the copy process. Check the result:

cat ~/project/lower_case.txt

You should see the text from mixed_case.txt in lowercase.

Summary

In this lab you have learnt the basic aspects of the dd command used in Linux to convert and copy files. We started the lab by familiarising you with the environment and scenario in which you are a technical engineer in a competitive environment. You have gained practical, hands-on experience of copying a file using dd and modifying the contents of the file during the copy process to convert the text case.