1.\" $NetBSD: cat.1,v 1.25 2002/05/15 06:52:54 kleink Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 7.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 8.\" 9.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 10.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 11.\" are met: 12.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 14.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 15.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 16.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 17.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 18.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 19.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 20.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 21.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 22.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 23.\" without specific prior written permission. 24.\" 25.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 26.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 27.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 28.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 29.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 30.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 31.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 32.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 33.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 34.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 35.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 36.\" 37.\" @(#)cat.1 8.3 (Berkeley) 5/2/95 38.\" 39.Dd May 2, 1995 40.Dt CAT 1 41.Os 42.Sh NAME 43.Nm cat 44.Nd concatenate and print files 45.Sh SYNOPSIS 46.Nm 47.Op Fl befnstuv 48.Op Fl 49.Op Ar 50.Sh DESCRIPTION 51The 52.Nm 53utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard output. 54The 55.Ar file 56operands are processed in command line order. 57A single dash represents the standard input, 58and may appear multiple times in the 59.Ar file 60list. 61.Pp 62The word 63.Dq concatenate 64is just a verbose synonym for 65.Dq catenate . 66.Pp 67The options are as follows: 68.Bl -tag -width Ds 69.It Fl b 70Implies the 71.Fl n 72option but doesn't number blank lines. 73.It Fl e 74Implies the 75.Fl v 76option, and displays a dollar sign 77.Pq Ql \&$ 78at the end of each line 79as well. 80.It Fl f 81Only attempt to display regular files. 82.It Fl n 83Number the output lines, starting at 1. 84.It Fl s 85Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be 86single spaced. 87.It Fl t 88Implies the 89.Fl v 90option, and displays tab characters as 91.Ql ^I 92as well. 93.It Fl u 94The 95.Fl u 96option guarantees that the output is unbuffered. 97.It Fl v 98Displays non-printing characters so they are visible. 99Control characters print as 100.Ql ^X 101for control-X; the delete 102character (octal 0177) prints as 103.Ql ^? 104Non-ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as 105.Ql M- 106(for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits. 107.El 108.Sh EXIT STATUS 109The 110.Nm 111utility exits 0 on success, and \*[Gt]0 if an error occurs. 112.Sh SEE ALSO 113.Xr head 1 , 114.Xr hexdump 1 , 115.Xr lpr 1 , 116.Xr more 1 , 117.Xr pr 1 , 118.Xr tail 1 , 119.Xr view 1 , 120.Xr vis 1 121.Rs 122.%A Rob Pike 123.%T "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful" 124.%J "USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings" 125.%D 1983 126.Re 127.Sh STANDARDS 128The 129.Nm 130utility is expected to conform to the 131.St -p1003.2-92 132specification. 133.Pp 134The flags 135.Op Fl benstv 136are extensions to the specification. 137.Sh HISTORY 138A 139.Nm 140utility appeared in 141.At v1 . 142Dennis Ritchie designed and wrote the first man page. 143It appears to have been 144.Xr cat 1 . 145.Sh BUGS 146Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output 147redirection, the command 148.Dq Li cat file1 file2 \*[Gt] file1 149will cause the original data in file1 to be destroyed! 150This is performed by the shell before 151.Nm 152is run. 153