Cat (Unix)
Unix utility that concatenates and lists files
cat is a shell command for writing the content of a file or input stream to standard output. The name is an abbreviation of catenate, a variant form of concatenate. Originally developed for Unix, it is available on many operating systems and shells today.
In addition to combining files, cat is commonly used to copy files and in particular to copy a file to the terminal monitor. Unless redirected, cat outputs file content on-screen.
History
cat was part of the early versions of Unix, e.g., Version 1. It replaced pr, a PDP-7 and Multics command for copying a single file to the screen. It was written by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.
The implementation of cat bundled in GNU coreutils was written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard Stallman.
Use
The cat command can be used to serve various needs including concatenation and display.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cat (Unix)” as unix utility that concatenates and lists files. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cat (Unix)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.