Thanks to both Jim and Bob for the answer. Using -v gives the behavior
that I was expecting (and shows that there is not a problem with od,
except for what I would consider to be an odd default--which we're stuck
with for the historical reasons given).
I do have one suggestion/request, though: please explain this behavior
better in the man page. Both explanations are good, but they came from
the info page. I don't know how most people go about it, but I rarely
use info, using man as normal practice. Not being an old-time power
user of od, the man page entry of
"-v, --output-duplicates
do not use * to mark line suppression"
meant nothing to me--and with no other mention in the man page of line
suppression it wouldn't. Given the bizarre default of suppressing
output,
I suggest that the better info entry for -v is worth pulling into the
man
page.
Thanks also to Bob for pointing out printf instead of print. I was
wondering what was best to use--knowing that print is problematic for
portability---but since I started on a mainframe with System V, printf
is not in my normal usage pattern.
Craig
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