CAT(1plan9)

💖 NAME 💖

cat, read, nobs — catenate files. Yeah bestie, it's the file-gluing trio. 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

cat [ file ...  ]
read [ -m ] [ -n nline ] [ file ...  ]
nobs [ file ...  ]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

cat reads each file in sequence and writes it straight to the standard output. So like:

cat file

prints a file, and

cat file1 file2 >file3

concatenates the first two files and drops the result into the third. Iconic behaviour, no notes. 💅

If you give it no file at all, cat reads from the standard input. Output is buffered in blocks matching the input — so it's not doing anything extra, it just moves the data.

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read copies to standard output exactly one line from the named file, defaulting to standard input. It's the moment for interactive rc(1) scripts, fr fr.

• -m — makes it keep reading and writing multiple lines until end of file
• -n — makes it read no more than nline lines

read always executes a single write for each line of input, which is lowkey the whole point when you're prepping input for programs that expect line-at-a-time data. And it never reads any more data from the input than it prints to the output. Respectful king. 👑

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nobs copies the named files to standard output, except it removes all backspace characters and the characters that precede them. It's the move when you want to use it as $PAGER with the Unix version of man(1) while running inside a win window — see acme(1). 🦋

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🎀 SOURCE 🎀

• /src/cmd/cat.c
• /src/cmd/read.c
• /bin/nobs

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• cp(1)

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🔥 DIAGNOSTICS 🔥

read exits with status eof on end of file — or, in the -n case, if it doesn't read nlines lines. Yes, the exit status is literally the string eof. Periodt. 💀

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👑 BUGS 👑

Beware of < and > which destroy input files before reading them. Like, the shell will absolutely clobber your file before cat even gets a chance to look at it. Be so careful with this one, bestie, it's giving data loss. 😭

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okay that's the whole page, mwah 💖

This was CAT(1plan9) from the Plan 9 manual, section 1 — cat, read, nobs, catenating files since forever, and the footer's just CAT(1plan9) right back at ya. 🎀✨