From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2009-11-27T12:28:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby byte access to disk sectors like dd does


From: "Gary Hasson" <gary@oax.net>
>
> I have been unable to find any reference to Ruby methods that provide
> raw disk access the way dd does. I frequently use the Linux utility
> program, dd, and would like to be able to do the same type of byte-level
> and sector-level access to the hard drive with Ruby. (What I am looking
> for is not file access.) Are there Ruby methods to provide this
> capability (other than having Ruby access dd)?

[i think my previous post didn't make it to the list]

dd if=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=1 | hexdump -C

...should be equivalent to...

ruby -e 'File.open("/dev/hdb", "rb") {|io| print(io.read(512))}' | hexdump -C


Regards,

Bill