Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It's most definitely catenate. I understand catenate to mean chain and concatenate to be to chain together. Since "cat foo bar xyzzy" doesn't modify the files to join them in any way I don't think they're chained together.

Besides, ken & Co. aren't daft. con would be short for concatenate. :-)



According to the 1st Edition and 6th Edition manual pages: NAME cat -- concatenate and print

See: http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/cat http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/cat

I'm pretty sure based on the timeline of pipe (~1973, roughly V4) that the cat command (~1971 V1) predates pipes.


Fortunately they fixed that errant man page. :-) http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/cat


From the man page cat doc1 doc2 > doc.all concatenates the files doc1 and doc2 and writes the result to doc.all


I think I'm missing your point. doc[12] aren't changed.


Doc 1 & 2 are not changed but chained together to create doc.all




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: