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.

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.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

     See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
     variables  that  affect  the execution of cat: LANG, LC_ALL,
     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                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Interface Stability         | Standard                    |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|

SEE ALSO

     touch(1),  attributes(5),  environ(5),  largefile(5),  stan-
     dards(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.