bug#24244: bug: dd deletes file

[Assaf Gordon]

retitle 24244 dd: protect against same file in input,output
severity 24244 wishlist
tags 24244 wontfix
close 24244
stop

(triaging old bugs)

On 2016-08-16 10:03 a.m., Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 16/08/16 16:44, puggy wrote:
> > by mistakes i used the same input and output file.
> > dd said it wrote 0 bytes, but what it actually did
> > is overwrite the file and setting it back to zero.
> > doing so, dd deleted a 4.3G file in a fraction of
> > a blink.
[....]
> > please find some solution for it. if it is
> > intentional, make an option for it. this way
> > you can also shorten the command. otherwise
> > if input and output are the same, warn the user!
>
> Well dd is a low level tool so we have to be careful
> to not preclude operations which may be valid in some cases.
> For example one might definitely want to read/write the same device.

With no further comments in 2 years, I'm closing this bug.
Discussion can continue by replying to this thread.

-assaf