.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
-.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
-.\" that: (1) source distributions retain this entire copyright notice and
-.\" comment, and (2) distributions including binaries display the following
-.\" acknowledgement: ``This product includes software developed by the
-.\" University of California, Berkeley and its contributors'' in the
-.\" documentation or other materials provided with the distribution and in
-.\" all advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software.
-.\" Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may
-.\" be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
-.\" specific prior written permission.
-.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
-.\" WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
-.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
+.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
.\"
-.\" @(#)cat.1 6.12 (Berkeley) 7/24/90
+.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
+.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
+.\" are met:
+.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
+.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
+.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
+.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
+.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
+.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
+.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
+.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
+.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
+.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
+.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
+.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
-.Dd July 24, 1990
+.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
+.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
+.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
+.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
+.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
+.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
+.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
+.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
+.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
+.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
+.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
+.\"
+.\" @(#)cat.1 6.16 (Berkeley) 6/27/91
+.\"
+.Dd June 27, 1991
.Dt CAT 1
.Os BSD 3
.Sh NAME
.Nm cat
.Op Fl benstuv
.Op Fl
-.Ar
+.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm cat
A single dash represents standard input.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
-.Tw Ds
-.Tp Fl b
+.Bl -tag -width Ds
+.It Fl b
Implies the
.Fl n
option but doesn't number blank lines.
-.Tp Fl e
+.It Fl e
Implies the
.Fl v
-option, and displays a dollar sign (``$'') at the end of each line
+option, and displays a dollar sign
+.Pq Ql \&$
+at the end of each line
as well.
-.Tp Fl n
+.It Fl n
Number the
.Ar output
lines, starting at 1.
-.Tp Fl s
+.It Fl s
Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be
single spaced.
-.Tp Fl t
+.It Fl t
Implies the
.Fl v
-option, and displays tab characters as ``^I'' as well.
-.Tp Fl u
+option, and displays tab characters as
+.Pq Ql ^I
+as well.
+.It Fl u
The
.Fl u
option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
-.Tp Fl v
+.It Fl v
Displays non-printing characters so they are visible.
-Control characters print line ``^X'' for control-X; the delete
-character (octal 0177) prints as ``^?''.
+Control characters print line
+.Ql ^X
+for control-X; the delete
+character (octal 0177) prints as
+.Ql ^?
Non-ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as
-`.`M-'' (for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits.
-.Tp
-.Pp
-.Nm Cat
-is useful for getting files into a pipe, for instance, to sort
-two files together,
-the command
-.Pp
-.Dl cat file1 file2 | sort > sfile
-.Pp
-reads the contents of
-file1 and file2 sequentially, pipes it all to sort and places the
-newly sorted data in file3.
+.Ql M-
+(for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits.
+.El
.Pp
+The
+.Nm cat
+utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
+.Sh BUGS
Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output
-redirection, the command ``cat file1 file 2 > file1'' will cause
-.P original data in file1 to be destroyed!
-.Pp
-.Nm Cat
-The cat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error
-occurs.
+redirection, the command
+.Dq Li cat file1 file 2 > file1
+will cause the original data in file1 to be destroyed!
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr head 1 ,
.Xr more 1 ,
.Xr pr 1 ,
.Xr tail 1
-.Pp
-Rob Pike,
-.Em UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful
-USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings, 1983.
+.Rs
+.%A Rob Pike
+.%T "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful"
+.%J "USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings"
+.%D 1983
+.Re
.Sh HISTORY
-The
+A
.Nm
-command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
+command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
projects / unix-history / blobdiff