freebsd-skq/bin/cat/cat.1

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.\"     @(#)cat.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 5/2/95
.\"	$Id: cat.1,v 1.3 1996/08/22 16:54:12 wosch Exp $
.\"
.Dd May 2, 1995
.Dt CAT 1
.Os BSD 3
.Sh NAME
.Nm cat
.Nd concatenate and print files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm cat
.Op Fl benstuv
.Op Fl
.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm cat
utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard output.
The
.Ar file
operands are processed in command line order.
A single dash represents the standard input.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl b
Implies the
.Fl n
option but doesn't number blank lines.
.It Fl e
Implies the
.Fl v
option, and displays a dollar sign
.Pq Ql \&$
at the end of each line
as well.
.It Fl n
Number the output lines, starting at 1.
.It Fl s
Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be
single spaced.
.It Fl t
Implies the
.Fl v
option, and displays tab characters as
.Ql ^I
as well.
.It Fl u
The
.Fl u
option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
.It Fl v
Displays non-printing characters so they are visible.
Control characters print as
.Ql ^X
for control-X; the delete
character (octal 0177) prints as
.Ql ^?
Non-ascii characters (with the high bit set) are printed as
.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
.Dq Li cat file1 file2 > 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 ,
.Xr vis 1
.Rs
.%A Rob Pike
.%T "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful"
.%J "USENIX Summer Conference Proceedings"
.%D 1983
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX. 
Dennis Ritchie designed and wrote the first man page. 
It appears to have been
.Xr cat 1 .