The cat command is a very popular and versatile command in the 'nix ecosystem. There are 4 common usages of the cat command. It can display a file, concatenate (combine) multiple files, echo text, and it can be used to create a new file.

Displaying a file

The most common use of the cat command is to output the contents of a file. The following is an example that you can try.

echo "Dance, Dance" > cat_create #create a file
cat cat_create

In this simple example, we’re using a combination of echo and a redirect to create a file containing “Dance, Dance”. We then use the cat command to display the contents.

The output is as follows:

The output of the example commands

(Con)cat

The previous example is actually a specific case of the cat command’s main function, which is to concatenate files for display. If we use the command the same way, but give it two or more files, then it outputs the concatenation for the files.

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