cat - Man Page
concatenate files and print on the standard output
Examples (TL;DR)
- Print the contents of a file to
stdout
:cat path/to/file
- Concatenate several files into an output file:
cat path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ... > path/to/output_file
- Append several files to an output file:
cat path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ... >> path/to/output_file
- Copy the contents of a file into an output file without buffering:
cat -u /dev/tty12 > /dev/tty13
- Write
stdin
to a file:cat - > path/to/file
Synopsis
cat [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Description
Concatenate FILE(s) to standard output.
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
- -A, --show-all
equivalent to -vET
- -b, --number-nonblank
number nonempty output lines, overrides -n
- -e
equivalent to -vE
- -E, --show-ends
display $ at end of each line
- -n, --number
number all output lines
- -s, --squeeze-blank
suppress repeated empty output lines
- -t
equivalent to -vT
- -T, --show-tabs
display TAB characters as ^I
- -u
(ignored)
- -v, --show-nonprinting
use ^ and M- notation, except for LFD and TAB
- --help
display this help and exit
- --version
output version information and exit
Examples
- cat f - g
Output f's contents, then standard input, then g's contents.
- cat
Copy standard input to standard output.
Author
Written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard M. Stallman.
Reporting Bugs
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
Copyright
Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
See Also
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/cat>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) cat invocation'
Referenced By
bat(1), catdoc(1), catppt(1), console(1), cpuset(7), devio(1), fetchlog(1), foomatic-rip(1), gio(1), kcc(1), ksh93(1), lz4(1), mksh(1), nbdkit-data-plugin(1), netcat(1), oggz-merge(1), oksh(1), parcat(1), perltie(1), pipebench(1), pmlogrewrite(1), proc(5), proc_pid_net(5), proc_scsi(5), pv(1), rabbitsign(1), readprofile(8), sipcalc(1), s-nail(1), sq(1), sq-inspect(1), srec_examples(1), systemd-socket-activate(1), tac(1), text-vimcolor(1), time_namespaces(7), ul(1), xls2csv(1), xmessage(1), xz(1).