4BSD/usr/man/man1/cat.1

.TH CAT 1 
.UC 4
.SH NAME
cat \- catenate and print
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B cat
[
.B \-u
] [
.B \-n
] [
.B \-s
] [
.B \-v
]
file ...
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Cat
reads each
.I file
in sequence
and writes it on the standard output.
Thus
.PP
.ti+15n
cat file
.PP
prints the file, and
.PP
.ti+15n
cat file1 file2 >file3
.PP
concatenates the first two files and places the result on the third.
.PP
If no input file is given,
or if the argument `\-' is encountered,
.I cat
reads from the standard
input file.
Output is buffered in 1024-byte blocks unless the standard
output is a terminal, in which case it is line buffered.
The
.B \-u
option causes the output to be completely unbuffered.
.PP
The option
.B \-n
causes the output lines to be numbered sequentially from 1.
Giving
.B \-b
with
.B \-n
causes numbers to be omitted from blank lines.
.PP
The option
.B \-s
causes the output to be single spaced by crushing out multiple adjacent
empty lines.
.PP
The option
.B \-v
causes non-printing characters to be printed in a visible way.
Control characters print like ^X for control-x; the delete character
(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
.B \-e
option may be given with
.B \-v
and causes the ends of lines to be followed by the character `$';
the
.B \-t
option with
.B \-v
causes tabs to be printed as ^I.
.PP
.SH "SEE ALSO"
cp(1), ex(1), more(1), pr(1), tail(1)
.SH BUGS
Beware of `cat a b >a' and `cat a b >b', which destroy
the input files before reading them.