Network, Computer and Programming Resources

Linux top 50 cmd - Cat

cat does not call your favorite feline; instead, it tells the contents of (typically) the file to scroll its contents across the screen. If that file happens to be binary, then the cat gets a hairball and shows it to you on the screen. Typically, this is a noisy process as well. What is actually happening is that the cat command is scrolling the characters of the file, and the terminal is doing all it can to interpret and display the data in the file. This interpretation can include the character used to create the bell signal, which is where the noise comes from. As you might have surmised, the cat command requires something to display and would have the following format: cat <filename>