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by brudgers
2978 days ago
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The terseness of Bash etc. is a tradeoff. "cat" is short for "concatenate." It's common use to list a single file is more the exploitation of an ambiguous API than a feature...concatenation of one file is like the sound of one hand clapping. I mean "to display the contents of a file use 'cat filename'" is an example of how *nix terseness makes understanding dependent on oral tradition rather than clear written communication. Even the man page doesn't describe using cat to display the contents of a single file [1]. It is only implied via the stdin example once a person understands the abstract relationship between the terminal and files. [1]: https://linux.die.net/man/1/cat |
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