'od' cant dump directory contants

[Jonesy]

On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:50:21 -0400 (EDT), Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, Amedee Van Gasse wrote:
>
>> Op 18-07-10 11:35, Ariful Hossain schreef:
>> > od supposed to dump directory contents as well as files. but in my
>> > ubuntu box it cant do that.  It gives only a read error msg.  Is
>> > it a problem with gnu od or od is implemented differently from
>> > original unix od?
>>
>> What is the exact command that you used? Including all parameters?
>
>   take my advice for what it's worth but, as a long-time linux trainer
> (and, yes, i'm available :-), i used to get students in intro classes
> to do just that -- hexdump or od directories themselves to see the
> structure of directory entries, including i-numbers.
>
>   at some point, that didn't work anymore because the way directories
> were implemented changed.  so my assumption these days is that, no,
> you can't dump directories anymore.  but i'm willing to be corrected.

We don't even know what fs the OP is attempting this `od` on.

Jonesy
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