
But bat comes with a more modern display and several added features that set it apart.įor one, bat adds syntax highlighting. Like cat, bat also gives you a simple command-line method for displaying file contents.

It is included in most distributions by default and gets referenced frequently as a quick way of viewing the contents of a file contents while on the command line. You may be familiar with the Linux cat command. If you’re not familiar with the sudo command, see the Linux Users and Groups guide. Commands that require elevated privileges are prefixed with sudo.

The steps in this guide are written for a non-root user.
