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submitted 3 months ago by shark_byte@lemmy.zip to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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ahh

~$ which cat

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[-] dan@upvote.au 86 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

cat is misunderstood a lot. The purpose of cat is to combine multiple files together (it's literally short for "concatenate"), like cat *.log to combine all log files together.

If you're just using it for a single file, then you should just redirect the file to stdin. These two command lines behave similarly:

cat foo.txt | some-command

some-command < foo.txt

For head, tail, grep and some other commands, you can just pass in the file name directly as an argument (e.g. grep whatever foo.txt).

[-] pedz@lemmy.ca 75 points 3 months ago

Also known as cat abuse.

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 18 points 3 months ago

awww what's a cat without a head and a tail?

[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 11 points 2 months ago

I guess depending on your interpretation of without it could either be "cat" or "a".

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 months ago

A kernel?

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago

uhmm no

[-] lokalhorst@feddit.org 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If I just want to look at the file, is there a better way than cat foo.txt? I guess I can't just do < foo.txt

[-] mote@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 months ago

So close! you have to do cat < foo.txt :-) (/s)

[-] dan@upvote.au 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Admittedly I still use cat for this.

This also works too, but it's more verbose:

echo "$(<foo.txt)"

It's mentioned in the Bash man pages:

The command substitution $(cat file) can be replaced by the equivalent but faster $(< file).

EDIT: I was just informed that simply <foo.txt works too.

[-] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

how in the world is this not a useless use of echo and equivalent to <foo.txt

[-] dan@upvote.au 6 points 2 months ago

OK, TIL you can just do <foo.txt. I didn't think that worked. Thanks!

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[-] TwilightKiddy@scribe.disroot.org 4 points 2 months ago

You can use less. There are also specialized ones for that purpose like bat.

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[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 16 points 3 months ago

yeah sure but the command is literally written for the humor.

[-] dan@upvote.au 19 points 3 months ago

I know, but I just wanted to mention this since a lot of new Linux users end up using cat this way :)

[-] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 5 points 2 months ago

Is there any downside?

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[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago

ohhh but it's all humor that's the point of the post.

I mean as a new Linux user, I won't take anything from a humor group seriously.

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[-] qqq@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

You'll see cat FILE | all the time because it's just a natural start to a pipeline. You cat FILE to see the content unfiltered before filtering it with further commands.

[-] BasedMaquisEddington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 months ago

it’s just a natural start to a pipeline

[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 12 points 2 months ago

Fair, but in general I find it way more useful to use cat for piping.

In most cases I'll do something like

cat file | program
cat file | program | grep
cat file | program | grep | cut

This gets more complicated if the file is at the end of the command.

[-] dan@upvote.au 8 points 2 months ago

It wouldn't be at the end, since you'd still be piping into program

program <file | grep | cut

[-] jxk@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

And <file program | grep | cut works too

[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 3 points 2 months ago

Oh, thanks! Didn't know that

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[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

I still like doing cat file.txt | grep thing because I often re-run it to find something else like cat file.txt | grep thing2 - and if I do that with grep, the pattern sits awkwardly in the middle instead of at the end

[-] tgt@programming.dev 9 points 2 months ago

< file.txt grep thing also works.

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[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 29 points 3 months ago

Another all-time favorite:

$ man woman  
No manual entry for woman

[-] TwilightKiddy@scribe.disroot.org 21 points 2 months ago

$ touch woman
touch: cannot touch 'woman': Permission denied

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[-] red_tomato@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago

tac is a cat but faced the other way

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 months ago

ohhh let me check it out lol

[-] exu@feditown.com 16 points 3 months ago

I've been using a slightly customized bash-cat for years now. Still makes me smile when I see it

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 months ago

yeah I just checked it out it's cute

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[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 months ago

tac

[-] Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

I've always wondered what a good use case for tac would be...

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Reverse chronological order, mostly

tac log.txt |head # would give you newest first

no good for sort because sort already supports -r

no need it for tail on large files because tail already skips to the end.

I do a lot of impromptu bash to sus crap out of logs.

when you're balls deep in

Sometimes tac comes in clutch.

[-] Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

That's fair. I'd usually just use less and drop to the end. My use cases would always need the older log before a newer log though because that's the start of the problem. At least that's how I operate.

[-] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 months ago

man which

[-] darth_grunkus@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

[-] TwilightKiddy@scribe.disroot.org 10 points 2 months ago

I always thought it's

head | cat | tail

It, of course, waits for an input, which brings up the one and only question...

Have you fed your cat?

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago

of course look meow meow so loud

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[-] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Bat is my favorite command to date.

[-] shark_byte@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

~$ which bat
~$ bat man

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[-] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 months ago

I was today's years old to finally notice the cat-head-tail thing...

But it also just recently dawned upon me why pacman has those weird "c" as progress indicators...

I'm not a smart man...

[-] HamsterRage@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago

For the past 30 years or so, my brain always tells me to type "last" instead of "tail". This usually results in some kind of "Permission denied" message that confuses me for a few seconds.

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[-] Avicenna@programming.dev 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

whereis cat?

[-] LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago

which cat

[-] Avicenna@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

whatis cat?

[-] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

man cat

[-] Avicenna@programming.dev 5 points 2 months ago

locate cat

[-] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

strace cat

[-] reader@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago

rtfm

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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026

429 points (98.0% liked)

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