cat.1 (2010 09)

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cat(1) cat(1)

NAME

cat - concatenate, copy, and print ﬁles

SYNOPSIS

cat [-benrstuv] ﬁle ...

DESCRIPTION

cat reads each ﬁle in sequence and writes it on the standard output. Thus:

cat ﬁle

prints ﬁle on the default standard output device;

cat ﬁle1 ﬁle2 > ﬁle3

concatenates ﬁle1 and ﬁle2 , and places the result in ﬁle3.

- is appears as a ﬁle argument,

cat uses standard input. To combine standard input and other ﬁles,

use a combination of

- and ﬁle arguments.

Options

cat recognizes the following options:

-b Omit line numbers from blank lines when -n option is speciﬁed. If this option is speciﬁed, the

-n option is automatically selected.

-e Print a $ character at the end of each line (prior to the new-line). If this option is speciﬁed,

the -v option is automatically selected.

-n Display output lines preceded by line numbers, numbered sequentially from 1.

-r Replace multiple consecutive empty lines with one empty line, so that there is never more than

one empty line between lines containing characters.

-s Silent option. cat suppresses error messages about non-existent ﬁles, identical input and

output, and write errors. Normally, input and output ﬁles cannot have identical names unless

the ﬁle is a special ﬁle.

-t Print each tab character as ˆI and form feed character as

ˆL. If this option is speciﬁed, the

-v option is automatically selected.

-u Do not buffer output (handle character-by-character). Normally, output is buffered.

-v Cause non-printing characters (with the exception of tabs, new-lines and form-feeds) to be

printed visibly. Control characters are printed using the form ˆX (Ctrl-X), and the

DEL char-

acter (octal 0177) is printed as

ˆ? (see ascii (5)). Single-byte control characters whose most

signiﬁcant bit is set, are printed using the form M-ˆx, where x is the character speciﬁed by the

seven low order bits. All other non-printing characters are printed as

M-x, where x is the

character speciﬁed by the seven low order bits. This option is inﬂuenced by the

LC_CTYPE

environment variable and its corresponding code set.

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

LANG provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. If

LANG is

unset or null, the default value of "C" (see lang (5)) is used. If any of the internationalization variables

contains an invalid setting,

cat will behave as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See

environ (5).

LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the other internationalization vari-

ables.

LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of text as single and/or multi-byte characters, the classiﬁcation

of characters as printable, and the characters matched by character class expressions in regular expres-

sions.

LC_MESSAGES determines the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic

messages written to standard error and informative messages written to standard output.

NLSPATH determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1

Summary of content (2 pages)

PAGE 1
cat(1) cat(1) NAME cat - concatenate, copy, and print files SYNOPSIS cat [-benrstuv] file ... DESCRIPTION cat reads each file in sequence and writes it on the standard output. Thus: cat file prints file on the default standard output device; cat file1 file2 > file3 A concatenates file1 and file2 , and places the result in file3 . If - is appears as a file argument, cat uses standard input. To combine standard input and other files, use a combination of - and file arguments.
PAGE 2
cat(1) cat(1) International Code Set Support Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. RETURN VALUE Exit values are: 0 >0 Successful completion. Error condition occurred.