


CAT(1)		    UNIX Programmer's Manual		   CAT(1)



NAME
     cat - catenate and print

SYNOPSIS
     cat [ -u ] [ -n ] [ -s ] [ -v ] file ...

DESCRIPTION
     _C_a_t reads each _f_i_l_e in sequence and displays it on the stan-
     dard 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 encoun-
     tered, _c_a_t reads from the standard input file.  Output is
     buffered in the block size recommended by _s_t_a_t(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.

SEE ALSO
     cp(1), ex(1), more(1), pr(1), tail(1)

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







Printed 11/26/99	   May 5, 1986				1



