cat
[from `catenate' via
{UNIX} `cat(1)'] vt.
1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
output sink without pause. 2. By extension, to dump large amounts
of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it
carefully. Usage considered silly. Rare outside UNIX sites. See
also
dd,
BLT.
Among UNIX fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example
of user-interface design, because it outputs the file contents
without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and
because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text,
but works with any sort of data.
Among UNIX-haters, `cat(1)' is considered the
canonical
example of *bad* user-interface design. This because it is more
often used to
blast a file to standard output than to
concatenate two files. The name `cat' for the former
operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's
cdr.
Of such oppositions are
holy wars made....
