Newsgroups:  comp.unix.shell
Date:        Tue, 5 Dec 2006 12:23:46 -0500

> #-- extract gzip for binaries.out
> head -c +$GZIPBYTE binaries.out >gzip 2>$NUL
> [ $? -eq 0 -a -f gzip ] || { NO; EXIT $BINARIES_EXTRACTION_FAILED; }
>
> The problem is that the script need to be portable on Linux and most of
> Unix flavor (HP-UX, AIX, SCO, Solaris, UnixWare) and "head -c" is not
> supported everywhere (not on SCO, UnixWare, Solaris).
>
> Is it possible to reproduce the head -c behaviour with dd command (or
> with another unix commands ?)

dd bs=$GZIPBYTE count=1 if=binaries.out of=gzip

For very large files you might need to make bs <= system RAM and count=$ GZIPBYTE / bs

Bill Marcum