CAT
Section: User Commands (1)
Index
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BSD mandoc
BSD 3
NAME
cat
- concatenate and print files
SYNOPSIS
[-benstuv
]
[-
]
[file ...
]
DESCRIPTION
The
utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard output.
The
file
operands are processed in command line order.
A single dash represents the standard input.
The options are as follows:
- -b
-
Implies the
-n
option but doesn't number blank lines.
- -e
-
Implies the
-v
option, and displays a dollar sign
(`$'
)
at the end of each line
as well.
- -n
-
Number the output lines, starting at 1.
- -s
-
Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be
single spaced.
- -t
-
Implies the
-v
option, and displays tab characters as
`^I'
as well.
- -u
-
The
-u
option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
- -v
-
Displays non-printing characters so they are visible.
Control characters print as
`^X'
for control-X; the delete
character (octal 0177) prints as
`^?'
Non-ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as
`M-'
(for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits.
The
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
BUGS
Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output
redirection, the command
``cat file1 file2 > file1
''
will cause the original data in file1 to be destroyed!
SEE ALSO
head(1),
more(1),
pr(1),
tail(1),
vis(1)
-
Rob Pike
"UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful"
"USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings"
1983
HISTORY
A
utility appeared in
AT&T System
v6 .
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- BUGS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- HISTORY
-
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