cat
cat — print a file's contents. It is one of the commands you type in a terminal, and everything below is produced by running it: the output, the error you get when it goes wrong, and a terminal you can type it into yourself.
What it prints
Run against a small demo project — the same one you get in the terminal below, so the output is what you will see, not an illustration of it.
$ cat notes.txtmilk bread milk
What it looks like when it goes wrong
The most common mistake with cat, and the exact message you get. Recognising the wording is most of the fix.
$ cat notes.txcat: notes.tx: No such file or directory
Common flags
- -nnumber the lines
Other commands
Try it yourself
Same files as above. Nothing here can break, and nothing leaves your browser.
Where you use it
Lessons that have you type cat on a real task, rather than read about it.
Written by Mikhail Kuzmitskii