osf1 man page for cat

cat(1)							      General Commands Manual							    cat(1)

NAME
       cat - Concatenates or displays files

SYNOPSIS
       cat [-benrstuv] file... | -

       The cat command reads each specified file in sequence and writes it to standard output.

STANDARDS
       Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

       cat: XCU5.0

       Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

OPTIONS
       [Tru64  UNIX]  Omits  line  numbers  from  blank  lines	when -n is specified. If you specify the -b option, the -n option is automatically
       invoked with it.  [Tru64 UNIX]  Same as the -v option with a $ (dollar  sign)  character  displayed  at	the  end  of  each  line.   [Tru64
       UNIX]  Displays	output	lines  preceded  by line numbers, numbered sequentially from 1.  [Tru64 UNIX]  Replaces multiple consecutive empty
       lines with one empty line, so that there is never more than one empty line between lines containing  characters.   [Tru64  UNIX]  Does  not
       display	a  message if cat cannot find an input file. (Silent option.)  [Tru64 UNIX]  Same as the -v option, with the tab character printed
       as <Ctrl-i> (^I).  Does not buffer output. Writes bytes from the input file to standard output without  delay  as  each	is  read.   [Tru64
       UNIX]  Displays nonprinting characters so that they are visible.

OPERANDS
       The name of the file to be displayed.

	      If you do not specify a file or if you specify - (dash) instead of file, cat reads from standard input. The cat command accepts mul-
	      tiple occurrences of - (dash) as a file argument.

DESCRIPTION
       [Tru64 UNIX]  The cat command is frequently used with > (redirection symbol) to concatenate the specified files and write them to the spec-
       ified destination.  (See CAUTIONS.) The cat command is also used with >> to append a file to another file.

CAUTIONS
       Do not redirect output to one of the input files using the > (redirection symbol).  If you do this, you lose the original data in the input
       file because the shell truncates it before cat can read it.  (See also the sh command.)

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned: Successful completion.  An error occurred.

EXAMPLES
       To display the file notes, enter: cat notes

	      If the file is longer than one screenful, it scrolls by too quickly to read. To display a file one page at a time, use the more com-
	      mand.  To concatenate several files, enter: cat section1.1 section1.2 section1.3 > section1

	      This  creates  a file named section1 that is a copy of section1.1 followed by section1.2 and section1.3.	To suppress error messages
	      about files that do not exist, enter: cat -s section2.1 section2.2 section2.3 > section2

	      If section2.1 does not exist, this command concatenates section2.2 and section2.3.  Note that the message goes to standard error, so
	      it  does	not appear in the output file.	The result is the same if you do not use the -s option, except that cat displays the error
	      message: cat: cannot open section2.1

	      You may want to suppress this message with the -s option when you use the cat command in shell procedures.  To append  one  file	to
	      the end of another, enter: cat section1.4 >> section1

	      The  >> in this command specifies that a copy of section1.4 be added to the end of section1.  If you want to replace the file, use a
	      single > symbol.	To add text to the end of a file, enter: cat >> notes Get milk on the way home <Ctrl-d>

	      Get milk on the way home is added to the end of notes.  With this syntax, the cat command does not display a prompt;  it	waits  for
	      you  to enter text.  Press the End-of-File key sequence (<Ctrl-d> above) to indicate you are finished.  To concatenate several files
	      with text entered from the keyboard, enter: cat section3.1 - section3.3 > section3

	      This concatenates section3.1, text from the keyboard, and section3.3 to create the file section3.  To concatenate several files with
	      output from another command, enter: ls | cat section4.1 - > section4

	      This  copies  section4.1,  and then the output of the ls command to the file section4.  To get two pieces of input from the terminal
	      (when standard input is a terminal) with a single command invocation, enter: cat start - middle - end > file1

	      If standard input is a regular file, however, the preceding command is equivalent to the following: cat start - middle /dev/null end
	      > file1

	      This  is because the entire contents of the file would be consumed by cat the first time it saw - (dash) as a file argument. An End-
	      of-File condition would then be detected immediately when - (dash) appeared the second time.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables affect the execution of cat: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables  that  are
       unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used.  If any of the internationalization vari-
       ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined.  If set to a  non-empty  string  value,
       overrides  the  values of all the other internationalization variables.	Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes
       of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments).  Determines the locale for the  for-
       mat  and  contents  of  diagnostic messages written to standard error.  Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
       LC_MESSAGES.

SEE ALSO
       Commands:  more(1), ksh(1), pack(1), pg(1), pr(1), Bourne shell sh(1b), POSIX shell sh(1p)

       Standards:  standards(5)

																	    cat(1)