terminal

The basic command cat, which prints a file's contents, has nothing to do with cats.

What is it short for?

Q: What is it short for?

concatenate. cat's original job is joining (concatenating) multiple files and printing them. It's mostly used to peek at single files — but knowing the etymology makes the command stick.

concatenate ✓
computer at terminal
click and type

concatenate
cat's original job is joining (concatenating) multiple files and printing them. It's mostly used to peek at single files — but knowing the etymology makes the command stick.

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terminal

The 'Hello World' of shell scripting, and the command you reach for whenever you need to check a variable's value?Where does 'cd ~' take you?What's the fundamental key combination to interrupt it?What's this file, saved with a .sh extension, called?What's this approach called, in contrast to the icon-clicking GUI?What is it?Which terminal command — probably the most-typed two letters in computing history — answers 'what's in this folder?'What does it stand for?Which command prints your current location's full path?What is it?What's this feature, written with the vertical bar (|)?On Linux and Mac, which magic word do you prefix to borrow top-level power — also famous from the 'make me a sandwich' comic meme?

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