'\" et
.TH CAT "1P" 2017 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual"
.\"
.SH PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
.\"
.SH NAME
cat
\(em concatenate and print files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
cat \fB[\fR-u\fB] [\fIfile\fR...\fB]\fR
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.IR cat
utility shall read files in sequence and shall write their contents
to the standard output in the same sequence.
.SH OPTIONS
The
.IR cat
utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017,
.IR "Section 12.2" ", " "Utility Syntax Guidelines".
.P
The following option shall be supported:
.IP "\fB\-u\fP" 10
Write bytes from the input file to the standard output without delay as
each is read.
.SH OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
.IP "\fIfile\fR" 10
A pathname of an input file. If no
.IR file
operands are specified, the standard input shall be used. If a
.IR file
is
.BR '\-' ,
the
.IR cat
utility shall read from the standard input at that point in the
sequence. The
.IR cat
utility shall not close and reopen standard input when it is referenced
in this way, but shall accept multiple occurrences of
.BR '\-' 
as a
.IR file
operand.
.SH STDIN
The standard input shall be used only if no
.IR file
operands are specified, or if a
.IR file
operand is
.BR '\-' .
See the INPUT FILES section.
.SH "INPUT FILES"
The input files can be any file type.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
.IR cat :
.IP "\fILANG\fP" 10
Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017,
.IR "Section 8.2" ", " "Internationalization Variables"
for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine
the values of locale categories.)
.IP "\fILC_ALL\fP" 10
If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the
other internationalization variables.
.IP "\fILC_CTYPE\fP" 10
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).
.IP "\fILC_MESSAGES\fP" 10
.br
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and
contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
.IP "\fINLSPATH\fP" 10
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
.IR LC_MESSAGES .
.SH "ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS"
Default.
.SH STDOUT
The standard output shall contain the sequence of bytes read from the
input files. Nothing else shall be written to the standard output.
If the standard output is a regular file, and is the same file as any
of the input file operands, the implementation may treat this as an error.
.SH STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
.SH "OUTPUT FILES"
None.
.SH "EXTENDED DESCRIPTION"
None.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
The following exit values shall be returned:
.IP "\00" 6
All input files were output successfully.
.IP >0 6
An error occurred.
.SH "CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS"
Default.
.LP
.IR "The following sections are informative."
.SH "APPLICATION USAGE"
The
.BR \-u
option has value in prototyping non-blocking reads from FIFOs. The
intent is to support the following sequence:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

mkfifo foo
cat -u foo > /dev/tty13 &
cat -u > foo
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
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 terminal, since buffering may delay the output. The
presence of the
.BR \-u
option guarantees that unbuffered I/O is available. It is
implementation-defined whether the
.IR cat
utility buffers output if the
.BR \-u
option is not specified. Traditionally, the
.BR \-u
option is implemented using the equivalent of the
\fIsetvbuf\fR()
function defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017.
.SH EXAMPLES
The following command:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat myfile
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
writes the contents of the file
.BR myfile
to standard output.
.P
The following command:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat doc1 doc2 > doc.all
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
concatenates the files
.BR doc1
and
.BR doc2
and writes the result to
.BR doc.all .
.P
Because of the shell language mechanism used to perform output
redirection, a command such as this:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat doc doc.end > doc
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
causes the original data in
.BR doc
to be lost before
.IR cat
even begins execution. This is true whether the
.IR cat
command fails with an error or silently succeeds (the specification
allows both behaviors). In order to append the contents of
.BR doc.end
without losing the original contents of
.BR doc ,
this command should be used instead:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat doc.end >> doc
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
The command:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat start - middle - end > file
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
when standard input is a terminal, gets two arbitrary pieces of input
from the terminal with a single invocation of
.IR cat .
Note, however, that if standard input is a regular file, this would be
equivalent to the command:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

cat start - middle /dev/null end > file
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
because the entire contents of the file would be consumed by
.IR cat
the first time
.BR '\-' 
was used as a
.IR file
operand and an end-of-file condition would be detected immediately when
.BR '\-' 
was referenced the second time.
.SH RATIONALE
Historical versions of the
.IR cat
utility include the
.BR \-e ,
.BR \-t ,
and
.BR \-v ,
options which permit the ends of lines,
<tab>
characters, 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:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

sed -n l pathname
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
The latter also has the advantage that its output is unambiguous,
whereas the output of historical
.IR cat
.BR \-etv
is not.
.P
The
.BR \-s
option was omitted because it corresponds to different functions in BSD
and System V-based systems. The BSD
.BR \-s
option to squeeze blank lines can be accomplished by the shell script
shown in the following example:
.sp
.RS 4
.nf

sed -n \(aq
# Write non-empty lines.
/./   {
      p
      d
      }
# Write a single empty line, then look for more empty lines.
/\(ha$/  p
# Get next line, discard the held <newline> (empty line),
# and look for more empty lines.
:Empty
/\(ha$/  {
      N
      s/.//
      b Empty
      }
# Write the non-empty line before going back to search
# for the first in a set of empty lines.
      p
\&\(aq
.fi
.P
.RE
.P
The System V
.BR \-s
option to silence error messages can be accomplished by redirecting the
standard error. Note that the BSD documentation for
.IR cat
uses the term ``blank line'' to mean the same as the POSIX ``empty
line'': a line consisting only of a
<newline>.
.P
The BSD
.BR \-n
option was omitted because similar functionality can be obtained from
the
.BR \-n
option of the
.IR pr
utility.
.SH "FUTURE DIRECTIONS"
None.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR "\fImore\fR\^"
.P
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017,
.IR "Chapter 8" ", " "Environment Variables",
.IR "Section 12.2" ", " "Utility Syntax Guidelines"
.P
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017,
.IR "\fIsetvbuf\fR\^(\|)"
.\"
.SH COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition,
Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute 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.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
.PP
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear
in this page are most likely
to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to
man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .