Re: [dev] cat -v

From: Kyryl Melekhin <k.melekhin_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2022 14:46:28 +0000

<inasprecali_AT_disroot.org> wrote:

> Why is cat -v considered bad? I see that people often bring up
> this particular example as a way to illustrate bad extensions, but
> what exactly makes it so?

Hi, by design cat is not supposed to be used for printing stuff
to the terminal. The fact that it does in the first place is a
sheer coincidence due to how redirection and stdout works.
Therefore anything that tries to alter the output of cat, like
the -v option does is violating the unix philosophy.
The reason people use it as example is because it's the most
simple. At least that's my interpretation, though I did not
do any specific research regarding to cat history. If you have
a better explanation feel free to correct me.

Regards,
Kyryl.
Received on Sun Jan 30 2022 - 15:46:28 CET