CAT(1) General Commands Manual CAT(1)

cat - concatenate files

cat [ - ] [ file ... ]

Cat reads each file in turn and writes it on the standard output. Thus

cat file

prints the file to standard output, and the following

cat file1 file2 >file3

concatenates two files onto a third.

If no file is given, or where - is given as an argument, cat reads from the standard input. Output is buffered in blocks matching the input.

/appl/cmd/cat.b

cp (1), stream (1)

Beware of cat a b >a and cat a b >b which destroy input files before reading them.