Working with text files

In this section, we will learn all the important tools to print out text file content on the command line. We'll also learn how to view text files using a text file viewer. In Linux, there exists two different basic file types, text files and binary files. Text files are configuration files, while binary files can be image files or compressed data files. The files' encoding defines whether a file should be treated as a text file or binary file. Text files normally use UTFR. On Linux, text files normally are encoded using UTF-8 or ASCII. You can use the file command to detect the file type, like:

file /etc/passwd   file ~file4.tar.gz

To print out a text file's content, you can use the cat command. cat stands for concatenate, that's also the reason where the command has its name from. So, let's concatenate some files and put the results in a new file by redirecting stdout:

cat /etc/passwd /etc/grp /etc/services > /tmp/concatenated-file

This line concatenates the three...