bsd man page for cat

CAT(1)							      General Commands Manual							    CAT(1)

NAME
       cat - catenate and print

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

DESCRIPTION
       Cat reads each file in sequence and displays it on the standard 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 encountered, cat reads from the standard input file.  Output is buffered in the block
       size recommended by stat(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  char-
       acter  (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.

4th Berkeley Distribution					    May 5, 1986 							    CAT(1)