man/cat1p/cat.1p.txt
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cat(P) cat(P)
NAME cat - concatenate and print files SYNOPSIS cat [-u][file ...] DESCRIPTION The cat utility shall read files in sequence and shall write their contents to the standard output in the same sequence. OPTIONS The cat utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines. The following option shall be supported: -u Write bytes from the input file to the standard output without delay as each is read. OPERANDS The following operand shall be supported: file A pathname of an input file. If no file operands are specified, the standard input shall be used. If a file is '-' , the cat utility shall read from the standard input at that point in the sequence. The cat utility shall not close and reopen standard input when it is referenced in this way, but shall accept multiple occurrences of '-' as a file operand. STDIN The standard input shall be used only if no file oper- ands are specified, or if a file operand is '-' . See the INPUT FILES section. INPUT FILES The input files can be any file type. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES The following environment variables shall affect the execution of cat: LANG Provide a default value for the internationaliza- tion variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale cate- gories.) LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables. LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi- byte characters in arguments). LC_MESSAGES Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic mes- sages written to standard error. NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES . ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS Default. STDOUT The standard output shall contain the sequence of bytes read from the input files. Nothing else shall be written to the standard output. STDERR The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages. OUTPUT FILES None. EXTENDED DESCRIPTION None. EXIT STATUS The following exit values shall be returned: 0 All input files were output successfully. >0 An error occurred. CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS Default. The following sections are informative. APPLICATION USAGE The -u option has value in prototyping non-blocking reads from FIFOs. The intent is to support the following sequence: mkfifo foo cat -u foo > /dev/tty13 & cat -u > foo It is unspecified whether standard output is or is not buffered in the default case. This is sometimes of interest when standard output is associated with a ter- minal, since buffering may delay the output. The pres- ence of the -u option guarantees that unbuffered I/O is available. It is implementation-defined whether the cat utility buffers output if the -u option is not speci- fied. Traditionally, the -u option is implemented using the equivalent of the setvbuf() function defined in the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. EXAMPLES The following command: cat myfile writes the contents of the file myfile to standard output. The following command: cat doc1 doc2 > doc.all concatenates the files doc1 and doc2 and writes the result to doc.all. Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output redirection, a command such as this: cat doc doc.end > doc causes the original data in doc to be lost. The command: cat start - middle - end > file when standard input is a terminal, gets two arbitrary pieces of input from the terminal with a single invoca- tion 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 con- sumed by cat the first time '-' was used as a file oper- and and an end-of-file condition would be detected imme- diately when '-' was referenced the second time. RATIONALE Historical versions of the cat utility include the options -e, -t, and -v, which permit the ends of lines, <tab>s, and invisible characters, respectively, to be rendered visible in the output. The standard developers omitted these options because they provide too fine a degree of control over what is made visible, and similar output can be obtained using a command such as: sed -n -e 's/$/$/' -e l pathname The -s option was omitted because it corresponds to dif- ferent functions in BSD and System V-based systems. The BSD -s option to squeeze blank lines can be accomplished by the shell script shown in the following example: sed -n ' # Write non-empty lines. /./ { p d } # Write a single empty line, then look for more empty lines. /^$/ p # Get next line, discard the held <newline> (empty line), # and look for more empty lines. :Empty /^$/ { N s/.// b Empty } # Write the non-empty line before going back to search # for the first in a set of empty lines. p The System V -s option to silence error messages can be accomplished by redirecting the standard error. Note that the BSD documentation for cat uses the term "blank line" to mean the same as the POSIX "empty line'': a line consisting only of a <newline>. The BSD -n option was omitted because similar function- ality can be obtained from the -n option of the pr util- ity. FUTURE DIRECTIONS None. SEE ALSO more , the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, setvbuf() COPYRIGHT Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operat- ing System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Speci- fications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Insti- tute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open- group.org/unix/online.html . POSIX 2003 cat(P) |