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Unix & Linux

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    Linux doesn't allow this... and I think most systems that do return the data in a unified format rather than whatever's actually in the filesystem. Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 12:19
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    This used to be possible back in the (very) old days. You can see evidence of this in K&R 2nd Edn. However, it is no longer possible; it hasn't been possible for most of this millennium. Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 12:40
  • This is possible, but unnecessary, under Unix systems - you can just use cat to display the contents if you like but hd (Unix equivalent of xxd) is probably more useful. I've noticed that Linux-based systems return an error if you open a directory file for reading, on the assumption it's a mistake. "By stopping stupid people doing stupid things, you also stop clever people doing clever things". Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 16:57