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The cat command is a standard Unix program used to concatenate and display files. The name is from...

The cat command is a standard Unix program used to concatenate and display files. The name is from catenate, a synonym of concatenate. The Single Unix Specification specifies the behavior that the contents of each of the files given in sequence as arguments will be written to the standard output in the same sequence, and mandates one option, -u, where each byte is printed as it is read. If the filename is specified as -, then cat will read from standard input at that point in the sequence. If no files are specified, cat will read from standard input entered. Both the BSD versions of cat (as per the OpenBSD manpage) and the GNU coreutils version of cat specify the following options: The Jargon File version 4.4.7 lists this as the definition of cat: UUOC (from comp.unix.shell on Usenet) stands for “Useless Use of cat”. As received wisdom on comp.unix.shell observes, “The purpose of cat is to concatenate (or 'catenate') files. If it's only one file, concatenating it with nothing at all is a waste of time, and costs you a process.” Nevertheless one sees people doing instead of the equivalent and cheaper or (equivalently and more classically) Since 1995, occasional awards for UUOC have