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CAT (1)

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cat - concatenate and print files

CONTENTS

Synopsis
Description
Environment Variables
See Also
Notes

cat [-suv [-et]] [-B size] [file ...]

Cat reads each file in sequence and writes it on the standard output. Thus

cat file

prints the file and

cat file1 file2 >file3

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

If no file is given, or if the argument '-' is encountered, cat reads from the standard input.

The cat command accepts the following options:

-u	Ensures output to be unbuffered.
-s	Causes cat to be silent about files that cannot be opened, read problems and similar error conditions.
-v	With this option given, non-printable characters are detected and printed as '^n' for control characters and 'M-n' for characters with the high bit set.
-t	If -v is present, this option causes tab and formfeed characters to be handled as control characters.
-e	If -v is present, this option causes end-of-line to be marked with '$'.
The following option is an extension:
-B size	Causes input and output to be performed in size byte units.

LANG, LC_ALL
	See locale(7).
LC_CTYPE
	Determines the mapping of bytes to characters and the set of printable characters for the -v option.

cp(1), pg(1), pr(1), locale(7)

Beware of 'cat a b >a' and 'cat a b >b', which destroy input files before reading them.