CAT(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ CAT(1) ✨

okay bestie, pull up a chair, grab your iced coffee, bc today we're talking about cat — the absolute icon of user commands, the main character of your terminal, the first command everybody learns and the one you'll never stop using 💖

💅 NAME

cat — concatenate files and print on the standard output 🐱

🌸 SYNOPSIS

cat [OPTION]... [FILE]...

🦋 DESCRIPTION

It glues your FILE(s) together and spits them out on standard output. That's it. That's the whole vibe. ✨

If you give it no FILE, or if FILE is literally just -, it reads from standard input instead. Standard input said "I'm the file now" and honestly? Slay. 🫶

👑 OPTIONS

  • -A, --show-all — same thing as -vET, all the secret characters revealed at once
  • -b, --number-nonblank — numbers the nonempty output lines only, and it overrides -n (sorry -n, -b is the one in charge here)
  • -e — same thing as -vE
  • -E, --show-ends — shows $ or ^M$ at the end of every line so you can see where lines actually stop 👀
  • -n, --number — numbers all the output lines, no skips, no breaks
  • -s, --squeeze-blank — squashes repeated empty output lines, because sometimes files are just. so. many. blank lines
  • -t — same thing as -vT
  • -T, --show-tabs — shows TAB characters as ^I so you finally see what's been hiding in there
  • -u — (ignored) 💀 this one is literally just standing there, doing nothing, we still love it
  • -v, --show-nonprinting — uses ^ and M- notation for the invisible stuff, except for LFD and TAB
  • --help — shows the help text and dips out
  • --version — outputs version info and dips out

🌈 EXAMPLES

cat f - g

Outputs f's contents, then standard input, then g's contents. three sources, one stream, zero drama ✨

cat</purl>

Copies standard input to standard output. just vibing, passing things along 🎀

🎀 AUTHOR

Written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard M. Stallman. legends, fr fr 👑

💜 REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org

GNU coreutils home page: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/

General help using GNU software: https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/

Report any translation bugs to: https://translationproject.org/team/

🌟 SEE ALSO

tac(1) — it's cat backwards. the way that a manpage can just do that 😭 iconic

Full documentation https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/cat

or available locally via: info '(coreutils) cat invocation'

💖 no cap, if you're reporting a bug, please be nice and include the details. the maintainers are people too 🫶

Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2) — shoutout 💅

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. 🚨

that's the whole page bestie, brought to you by GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026 — go pipe something into something else, you got this 🌸🦋💖

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