cat

 

---

 
 
 
 User Commands                                              cat(1)
 
 
 


NAME
      cat - concatenate and display files
 


SYNOPSIS
      cat [ -nbsuvet ]  [ file ... ]
 


DESCRIPTION
      The cat utility reads each file in sequence and writes it on
      the standard output. Thus:
 
      example% cat file
      prints file on your terminal, and:
 
      example% cat file1 file2 >file3
      concatenates file1 and file2,  and  writes  the  results  in
      file3.  If  no input file is given, cat reads from the stan-
      dard input file.
 


OPTIONS
      The following options are supported:
 
      -n    Precede each line output with its line number.
 
      -b    Number the lines, as -n, but  omit  the  line  numbers
            from blank lines.
 
      -u    The output is not buffered. (The default  is  buffered
            output.)
 
      -s    cat is silent about non-existent files.
 
      -v    Non-printing characters (with the exception  of  tabs,
            new-lines  and  form-feeds) are printed visibly. ASCII
            control characters (octal 000 - 037)  are  printed  as
            ^n,  where  n  is the corresponding ASCII character in
            the range octal 100 - 137 (@, A, B, C, . . ., X, Y, Z,
            [,  \, ], ^, and _); the DEL character (octal 0177) is
            printed ^?. Other non-printable characters are printed
            as  M-x,  where  x is the ASCII character specified by
            the low-order seven bits.
 
      When used with the -v option, the following options  may  be
      used:
 
      -e    A $ character will be printed at the end of each  line
            (prior to the new-line).
 
      -t    Tabs will be printed  as  ^I's  and  formfeeds  to  be
            printed as ^L's.
 
      The -e and -t options are ignored if the -v  option  is  not
      specified.
 
 
 
 SunOS 5.8            Last change: 1 Feb 1995                    1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 User Commands                                              cat(1)
 
 
 


OPERANDS
      The following operand is supported:
 
           file  A path name of an  input  file.  If  no  file  is
                 specified, the standard input is used. If file is
                 `-', cat will read from  the  standard  input  at
                 that  point  in  the sequence. cat will not close
                 and reopen standard input when it  is  referenced
                 in this way, but will accept multiple occurrences
                 of `-' as file.
 
 
 USAGE
      See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of  cat
      when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2
     **31 bytes).
 
 EXAMPLES
      Example 1: Concatenating a file
 
      The following command:
 
      example% cat myfile
 
      writes the contents of the file myfile to standard output.
 
      Example 2: Concatenating two files into one
 
      The following command:
 
      example% cat doc1 doc2 > doc.all
      concatenates the files doc1 and doc2 and writes  the  result
      to doc.all.
 
      Example 3: Concatenating two arbitrary pieces of input  with
      a single invocation
 
      The command:
 
      example% cat start - middle - end > file
      when standard input is a terminal, gets two arbitrary pieces
      of  input from the terminal with a single invocation of cat.
      Note, however, that if standard input  is  a  regular  file,
      this would be equivalent to the command:
 
      cat start - middle /dev/null end > file
      because the entire contents of the file would be consumed by
      cat  the  first  time  `-' was used as a file operand and an
      end-of-file condition would be detected immediately when `-'
      was referenced the second time.
 
 
 
 
 
 SunOS 5.8            Last change: 1 Feb 1995                    2
 
 
 
 
 
 
 User Commands                                              cat(1)
 
 
 
 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
      See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
      variables  that  affect  the  execution  of  cat:  LC_CTYPE,
      LC_MESSAGES,  and NLSPATH.
 
 EXIT STATUS
      The following exit values are returned:
 
      0     All input files were output successfully.
 
      >0    An error occurred.
 


ATTRIBUTES
      See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
      butes:
 
      ____________________________________________________________
     |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
     |_____________________________|_____________________________|
     | Availability                | SUNWcsu                     |
     |_____________________________|_____________________________|
     | CSI                         | enabled                     |
     |_____________________________|_____________________________|
 
 


SEE ALSO
      touch(1), environ(5), attributes(5), largefile(5)
 


NOTES
      Redirecting the output of cat onto one of  the  files  being
      read  will cause the loss of the data originally in the file
      being read. For example,
 
      example% cat filename1 filename2 >filename1
      causes the original data in filename1 to be lost.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 SunOS 5.8            Last change: 1 Feb 1995                    3
 
 
 

---