read.1 - 9base - revived minimalist port of Plan 9 userland to Unix
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       read.1 (1806B)
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            1 .TH CAT 1
            2 .SH NAME
            3 cat, read, nobs \- catenate files
            4 .SH SYNOPSIS
            5 .B cat
            6 [
            7 .I file ...
            8 ]
            9 .br
           10 .B read
           11 [
           12 .B -c
           13 ] [
           14 [
           15 .B -m
           16 ] [
           17 .B -n
           18 .I nline
           19 ] [
           20 .I file ...
           21 ]
           22 .br
           23 .B nobs
           24 [
           25 .I file ...
           26 ]
           27 .SH DESCRIPTION
           28 .I Cat
           29 reads each
           30 .I file
           31 in sequence and writes it on the standard output.
           32 Thus
           33 .IP
           34 .L
           35 cat file
           36 .LP
           37 prints a file and
           38 .IP
           39 .L
           40 cat file1 file2 >file3
           41 .LP
           42 concatenates the first two files and places the result
           43 on the third.
           44 .PP
           45 If no
           46 .I file
           47 is given,
           48 .I cat 
           49 reads from the standard input.
           50 Output is buffered in blocks matching the input.
           51 .PP
           52 .I Read
           53 copies to standard output exactly one line from the named
           54 .IR file ,
           55 default standard input.
           56 It is useful in interactive
           57 .IR rc (1)
           58 scripts.
           59 .PP
           60 The
           61 .B -m
           62 flag causes it to continue reading and writing multiple lines until end of file;
           63 .B -n
           64 causes it to read no more than
           65 .I nline
           66 lines.
           67 .PP
           68 With the
           69 .B -c
           70 flag,
           71 .I read
           72 copies exactly
           73 .I nbytes
           74 of characters instead of lines. It is mutually exclusive with
           75 .B -n
           76 and
           77 .B -m
           78 flag.
           79 .PP
           80 .I Read
           81 always executes a single
           82 .B write
           83 for each line of input, which can be helpful when
           84 preparing input to programs that expect line-at-a-time data.
           85 It never reads any more data from the input than it prints to the output.
           86 .PP
           87 .I Nobs
           88 copies the named files to
           89 standard output except that it removes all backspace
           90 characters and the characters that precede them.
           91 It is useful to use as
           92 .B $PAGER
           93 with the Unix version of
           94 .IR man (1)
           95 when run inside a
           96 .I win
           97 (see
           98 .IR acme (1))
           99 window.
          100 .SH SOURCE
          101 .B \*9/src/cmd/cat.c
          102 .br
          103 .B \*9/src/cmd/read.c
          104 .br
          105 .B \*9/bin/nobs
          106 .SH SEE ALSO
          107 .IR cp (1)
          108 .SH DIAGNOSTICS
          109 .I Read
          110 exits with status
          111 .B eof
          112 on end of file or, in the
          113 .B -n
          114 case, if it doesn't read
          115 .I nlines
          116 lines.
          117 .SH BUGS
          118 Beware of
          119 .L "cat a b >a"
          120 and
          121 .LR "cat a b >b" ,
          122 which
          123 destroy input files before reading them.