| 1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California. |
| 2 | .\" All rights reserved. |
| 3 | .\" |
| 4 | .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by |
| 5 | .\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. |
| 6 | .\" |
| 7 | .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without |
| 8 | .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions |
| 9 | .\" are met: |
| 10 | .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright |
| 11 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. |
| 12 | .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright |
| 13 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the |
| 14 | .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. |
| 15 | .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software |
| 16 | .\" must display the following acknowledgement: |
| 17 | .\" This product includes software developed by the University of |
| 18 | .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. |
| 19 | .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors |
| 20 | .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software |
| 21 | .\" without specific prior written permission. |
| 22 | .\" |
| 23 | .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND |
| 24 | .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE |
| 25 | .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE |
| 26 | .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE |
| 27 | .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL |
| 28 | .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS |
| 29 | .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) |
| 30 | .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT |
| 31 | .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY |
| 32 | .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF |
| 33 | .\" SUCH DAMAGE. |
| 34 | .\" |
| 35 | .\" @(#)cat.1 6.16 (Berkeley) 6/27/91 |
| 36 | .\" |
| 37 | .Dd June 27, 1991 |
| 38 | .Dt CAT 1 |
| 39 | .Os BSD 3 |
| 40 | .Sh NAME |
| 41 | .Nm cat |
| 42 | .Nd concatenate and print files |
| 43 | .Sh SYNOPSIS |
| 44 | .Nm cat |
| 45 | .Op Fl benstuv |
| 46 | .Op Fl |
| 47 | .Op Ar |
| 48 | .Sh DESCRIPTION |
| 49 | The |
| 50 | .Nm cat |
| 51 | utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard output. |
| 52 | The |
| 53 | .Ar file |
| 54 | operands are processed in command line order. |
| 55 | A single dash represents standard input. |
| 56 | .Pp |
| 57 | The options are as follows: |
| 58 | .Bl -tag -width Ds |
| 59 | .It Fl b |
| 60 | Implies the |
| 61 | .Fl n |
| 62 | option but doesn't number blank lines. |
| 63 | .It Fl e |
| 64 | Implies the |
| 65 | .Fl v |
| 66 | option, and displays a dollar sign |
| 67 | .Pq Ql \&$ |
| 68 | at the end of each line |
| 69 | as well. |
| 70 | .It Fl n |
| 71 | Number the |
| 72 | .Ar output |
| 73 | lines, starting at 1. |
| 74 | .It Fl s |
| 75 | Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be |
| 76 | single spaced. |
| 77 | .It Fl t |
| 78 | Implies the |
| 79 | .Fl v |
| 80 | option, and displays tab characters as |
| 81 | .Pq Ql ^I |
| 82 | as well. |
| 83 | .It Fl u |
| 84 | The |
| 85 | .Fl u |
| 86 | option guarantees that the output is unbuffered. |
| 87 | .It Fl v |
| 88 | Displays non-printing characters so they are visible. |
| 89 | Control characters print line |
| 90 | .Ql ^X |
| 91 | for control-X; the delete |
| 92 | character (octal 0177) prints as |
| 93 | .Ql ^? |
| 94 | Non-ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as |
| 95 | .Ql M- |
| 96 | (for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits. |
| 97 | .El |
| 98 | .Pp |
| 99 | The |
| 100 | .Nm cat |
| 101 | utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. |
| 102 | .Sh BUGS |
| 103 | Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output |
| 104 | redirection, the command |
| 105 | .Dq Li cat file1 file 2 > file1 |
| 106 | will cause the original data in file1 to be destroyed! |
| 107 | .Sh SEE ALSO |
| 108 | .Xr head 1 , |
| 109 | .Xr more 1 , |
| 110 | .Xr pr 1 , |
| 111 | .Xr tail 1 |
| 112 | .Rs |
| 113 | .%A Rob Pike |
| 114 | .%T "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful" |
| 115 | .%J "USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings" |
| 116 | .%D 1983 |
| 117 | .Re |
| 118 | .Sh HISTORY |
| 119 | A |
| 120 | .Nm |
| 121 | command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. |