usr/man/cat1/cat.0



CAT(1)              UNIX Programmer's Manual               CAT(1)


N\bNA\bAM\bME\bE
     cat - catenate and print

S\bSY\bYN\bNO\bOP\bPS\bSI\bIS\bS
     c\bca\bat\bt [ -\b-b\bbe\ben\bns\bst\btu\buv\bv ] file ...

D\bDE\bES\bSC\bCR\bRI\bIP\bPT\bTI\bIO\bON\bN
     _\bC_\ba_\bt reads each _\bf_\bi_\bl_\be in sequence and displays it on the stan-
     dard output.  Thus

                    cat file

     displays the file on the standard output, and

                    cat file1 file2 >file3

     concatenates the first two files and places the result on
     the third.

     If no input file is given, or if the argument `-' is encoun-
     tered, _\bc_\ba_\bt reads from the standard input file.  Output is
     buffered in the block size recommended by _\bs_\bt_\ba_\bt(2) unless the
     standard output is a terminal, when it is line buffered.
     The -\b-u\bu option makes the output completely unbuffered.

     The -\b-n\bn option displays the output lines preceded by lines
     numbers, numbered sequentially from 1.  Specifying the -\b-b\bb
     option with the -\b-n\bn option omits the line numbers from blank
     lines.

     The -\b-s\bs option crushes out multiple adjacent empty lines so
     that the output is displayed single spaced.

     The -\b-v\bv option displays non-printing characters so that they
     are visible.  Control characters print like ^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 of the low 7 bits.  A
     -\b-e\be option may be given with the -\b-v\bv option, which displays a
     `$' character at the end of each line.  Specifying the -\b-t\bt
     option with the -\b-v\bv option displays tab characters as ^I.

S\bSE\bEE\bE A\bAL\bLS\bSO\bO
     cp(1), ex(1), more(1), pr(1), tail(1)

B\bBU\bUG\bGS\bS
     Beware of `cat a b >a' and `cat a b >b', which destroy the
     input files before reading them.


Printed 7/9/88         September 29, 1987                       1