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@(#)cat.1 6.3 (Berkeley) 09/29/87

C 4 cat - catenate and print cat [ -benstuv ] file ...

Cat reads each file in sequence and displays it on the standard 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 encountered, cat reads from the standard input file. Output is buffered in the block size recommended by stat(2) unless the standard output is a terminal, when it is line buffered. The -u option makes the output completely unbuffered.

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

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

The -v 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 -e option may be given with the -v option, which displays a `$' character at the end of each line. Specifying the -t option with the -v option displays tab characters as ^I.

cp(1), ex(1), more(1), pr(1), tail(1) Beware of `cat a b >a' and `cat a b >b', which destroy the input files before reading them.