cat

Purpose

Copy contents of a file to standard output (the screen).

Syntax

cat [-benstvA] files

Options

-b numbers nonblank lines.

-e shows each end-of-line (as $) and all nonprinting characters.

-n numbers all output lines starting with number 1.

-s replaces multiple blank lines with a single blank line.

-t shows tabs as ^I .

-v shows nonprinting characters.

-A shows all characters (including nonprinting ones).

Description

Typically, cat is used to display the contents of a file or to concatenate several files into a single file. For example, cat file1 file2 file3 > all combines three files into a single file named all.