The Source History of Cat

>>janvdb+(OP)
I always wondered where the name cat came from which the article doesn’t address. Any ideas?

>>ccanno+ca
It's short for conCATenate.

>>driver+na
Actually catinate, which is a real word but less used. But you are still right.

>>Isamu+Mc
In the earliest references, it was "concatenate". It wasn't until 7th edition UNIX (1979) that "catenate" was given.

References:

- 1971 draft (pre 1st edition) of the paper that would become the well-known 1974 CACM UNIX paper (earliest documentation on `cat` that I can find): https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_... (tune in on page 28)

- 6th edition cat(1) man page (1975): http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/cat

- 7th edition cat(1) man page (1979): http://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/cat

>>LukeSh+fe
Latin root word "catena", meaning "chain".

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