freebsd/bin/cat/cat.1

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.\"     @(#)cat.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 5/2/95
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.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
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 indent
.It Fl b
Number the non-blank output lines, starting at 1.
.It Fl e
Display non-printing characters (see the
.Fl v
option), and display a dollar sign
.Pq Ql \&$
at the end of each line.
.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
Display non-printing characters (see the
.Fl v
option), and display tab characters as
.Ql ^I .
.It Fl u
The
.Fl u
option guarantees that the output is unbuffered.
.It Fl v
Display non-printing characters so they are visible.
Control characters print as
.Ql ^X
for control-X; the delete
character (octal 0177) prints as
.Ql ^?
.Pf Non- Tn ASCII
characters (with the high bit set) are printed as
.Ql M-
(for meta) followed by the character for the low 7 bits.
.El
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
The
.Nm
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. 
.An Dennis Ritchie
designed and wrote the first man page. 
It appears to have been
.Xr cat 1 .