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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>cat</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../C.html" title="C"/><link rel="previous" href="casting-the-runes.html" title="casting the runes"/><link rel="next" href="catatonic.html" title="catatonic"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">cat</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="casting-the-runes.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">C</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="catatonic.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="cat"/><dt xmlns="" id="cat"><b>cat</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">vt.</span></dt></dt><dd><p>[from <span class="firstterm">catenate</span> via
<a href="../U/Unix.html"><i class="glossterm">Unix</i></a>
<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">cat</span>(1)</span>]</p></dd><dd><p> 1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
output sink without pause (syn. <a href="../B/blast.html"><i class="glossterm">blast</i></a>). </p></dd><dd><p> 2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared
target or with no intention of browsing it carefully. Usage: considered
silly. Rare outside Unix sites. See also <a href="../D/dd.html"><i class="glossterm">dd</i></a>,
<a href="../B/BLT.html"><i class="glossterm">BLT</i></a>.</p></dd><dd><p>Among Unix fans,
<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">cat</span>(1)</span>
is considered an excellent example of user-interface design, because it
delivers the file contents without such verbosity as spacing or headers
between the files, and because it does not require the files to consist of
lines of text, but works with any sort of data.</p><p>Among Unix haters,
<span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">cat</span>(1)</span>
is considered the <a href="canonical.html"><i class="glossterm">canonical</i></a> example of
<span class="emphasis"><em>bad</em></span> user-interface design, because of its woefully
unobvious name. It is far more often used to <a href="../B/blast.html"><i class="glossterm">blast</i></a>
a file to standard output than to concatenate two files. The name <b class="command">cat</b> for the former operation is just as unintuitive
as, say, LISP's <a href="cdr.html"><i class="glossterm">cdr</i></a>.</p><p>Of such oppositions are <a href="../H/holy-wars.html"><i class="glossterm">holy wars</i></a>
made.... See also <a href="../U/UUOC.html"><i class="glossterm">UUOC</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="casting-the-runes.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../C.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="catatonic.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">casting the runes </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> catatonic</td></tr></table></div></body></html>