CAT(1)                     OpenBSD Reference Manual                     CAT(1)

NAME
     cat - concatenate and print files

SYNOPSIS
     cat [-benstuv] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The cat utility reads files sequentially, writing them to the standard
     output.  The file operands are processed in command-line order.  If file
     is a single dash (`-') or absent, cat reads from the standard input.

     The options are as follows:

     -b      Implies the -n option but doesn't count blank lines.

     -e      Implies the -v option and also prints a dollar sign (`$') at the
             end of each line.

     -n      Number the output lines, starting at 1.

     -s      Squeeze multiple adjacent empty lines, causing the output to be
             single spaced.

     -t      Implies the -v option and also prints tab characters as `^I'.

     -u      The output is guaranteed to be unbuffered (see setbuf(3)).

     -v      Displays non-printing characters so they are visible.  Control
             characters print as `^X' for control-X, with the exception of the
             tab and EOL characters, which are displayed normally.  The tab
             character, control-I, can be made visible via the -t option.  The
             DEL character (octal 0177) prints as `^?'.  Non-ASCII characters
             (with the high bit set) are printed as `M-' (for meta) followed
             by the character for the low 7 bits.

     The cat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     Print the contents of file1 to the standard output:

           $ cat file1

     Sequentially print the contents of file1 and file2 to the file file3,
     truncating file3 if it already exists.  See the manual page for your
     shell (e.g., sh(1)) for more information on redirection.

           $ cat file1 file2 > file3

     Print the contents of file1, print data it receives from the standard in-
     put until it receives an EOF (`^D') character, print the contents of
     file2, read and output contents of the standard input again, then finally
     output the contents of file3.  Note that if the standard input referred
     to a file, the second dash on the command-line would have no effect,
     since the entire contents of the file would have already been read and
     printed by cat when it encountered the first `-' operand.

           $ cat file1 - file2 - file3

SEE ALSO
     head(1), less(1), more(1), pr(1), sh(1), tail(1), vis(1), setbuf(3)

     Rob Pike, "UNIX Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful", USENIX Summer
     Conference Proceedings, 1983.

STANDARDS
     The cat utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (``POSIX'')
     specification.

     The flags [-benstv] are extensions to that specification.

HISTORY
     A cat utility appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
     Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output redirec-
     tion, the command cat file1 file2 > file1 will cause the original data in
     file1 to be destroyed!

OpenBSD 4.7                    February 8, 2009                              2
