.\" Copyright (c) 1989 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\"
.\"	@(#)cat.1	6.7 (Berkeley) 05/31/90
.\"
.TH CAT 1 ""
.UC 1
.SH NAME
cat \- concatenate and print files
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBcat [ \fI-benstuv\fB ] [ \fI-\fB ] [ \fIfile ...\fB ]
.ft R
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I cat
utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard output.
The
.I file
operands are processed in command line order.
A single dash represents standard input.
.PP
The options are as follows:
.TP
.I -b
Implies the
.I -n
option but doesn't number blank lines.
.TP
.I -e
Implies the
.I -v
option, and displays a dollar sign (``$'') at the end of each line
as well.
.TP
.I -n
Number the
.I output
lines, starting at 1.
.TP
.I -s
Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be
single spaced.
.TP
.I -t
Implies the
.I -v
option, and displays tab characters as ``^I'' as well.
.TP
.I -u
The
.I \-u
option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
.TP
.I -v
Displays non-printing characters so they are visible.
Control characters print line ``^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.
.PP
The command ``cat file1 file2 > file3'' concatenates the contents of
file1 and file2 and places the result in file3.
.PP
Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output
redirection, the command ``cat file1 file 2 > file1'' will cause
the original data in file1 to be destroyed!
.PP
.I Cat
exits 0 on success, >0 if an error occurred.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
head(1), more(1), pr(1), tail(1)
.br
Rob Pike, ``UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful''
USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings, 1983.