bat is a command-line tool in Linux that is used to display the contents of text files with syntax highlighting. It is similar to the cat command, which is used to display the contents of text files, but bat adds support for syntax highlighting to make the text easier to read and understand.
To use bat, you will need to have the bat package installed on your Linux system. You can install bat using the package manager for your specific distribution of Linux. For example, on an Ubuntu system, you can use the apt command to install bat:
# apt-get install bat
Once bat is installed, you can use it to display the contents of a text file with syntax highlighting by running the bat command followed by the name of the file. For example, to display the contents of a file called example.py with syntax highlighting for Python, you could use the following command:
# bat example.py
bat Command Examples
1. Print the contents of a file to the standard output:
# bat file
2. Concatenate several files into the target file:
# bat file1 file2 > target_file
3. Append several files into the target file:
# bat file1 file2 >> target_file
4. Number all output lines:
# bat -n file
5. Syntax highlight a JSON file:
# bat --language json file.json
6. Display all supported languages:
# bat --list-languages