cat
<tool> (From "catenate") Unix's command which copies one or more entire
files to the screen or some other output sink without pause.
See also dd, BLT.
Among Unix fans, cat 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 (the pr command can be used to do this), and
because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text, but works
with any sort of data.
Among Unix haters, cat is considered the canonical example of *bad*
user-interface design, because of its woefully unobvious name. It is far more
often used to blast a file to standard output than to concatenate files. The
name "cat" for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's cdr.
Of such oppositions are holy wars made.
(1994-11-29)
Nearby terms:
casters-up mode « casting the runes « CAT « cat
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