vdir needed? dd if=/directory

[Dan Jacobson]

Um, what is the major bonus of having this command instead of just a
tiny alias in ones .bashrc if one pleases,  etc.?:

|`vdir': Verbosely list directory contents
|
|   `vdir' (also installed as `v') is equivalent to `ls -l -b'; that is,
|by default files are listed in long format and special characters are
|represented by backslash escape sequences.

Looking at its man page, it is a 98% copy of the ls man page.

$ man vdir>| a
$ man ls |diff -b a -
4c4
< VDIR(1)                        FSF                        VDIR(1)
---
> LS(1)                          FSF                          LS(1)
8c8
<        vdir - list directory contents
---
>        ls - list directory contents
11c11
<        vdir [OPTION]... [FILE]...
---
>        ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
70c70
< VDIR(1)                        FSF                        VDIR(1)
---
> LS(1)                          FSF                          LS(1)
136c136
< VDIR(1)                        FSF                        VDIR(1)
---
> LS(1)                          FSF                          LS(1)
202c202
< VDIR(1)                        FSF                        VDIR(1)
---
> LS(1)                          FSF                          LS(1)
225,226c225,226
<        The full documentation for vdir is maintained as a Texinfo
<        manual.  If  the  info  and  vdir  programs  are  properly
---
>        The  full  documentation for ls is maintained as a Texinfo
>        manual.   If  the  info  and  ls  programs  are   properly
229c229
<               info vdir
---
>               info ls

gee whiz.

Anyway, what I'm looking for is something that can dump out content of
directories:
0tmp$ ls -ld /tmp
drwxrwxrwt   12 root     root         9216 Nov 20 21:58 /tmp/
0tmp$ dd if=/tmp
dd: /tmp: Is a directory
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
2tmp$ od -c /tmp
od: /tmp: Is a directory
0000000

I want to see what lies in those 9216 bytes, please, using a
/bin/sometool , not having to write a C program to do it.
So, what GNU utility will allow me to do it?

P.S. doesn't the 0000000 and even 0+0 stuff look uncalled for in these
failure modes?  [but might break something if removed.]
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