this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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ahh

~$ which cat
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[–] dan@upvote.au 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Admittedly I still use cat for this.

This also works too, but it's more verbose:

echo "$(<foo.txt)"

It's mentioned in the Bash man pages:

The command substitution $(cat file) can be replaced by the equivalent but faster $(< file).

EDIT: I was just informed that simply <foo.txt works too.

[–] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

how in the world is this not a useless use of echo and equivalent to <foo.txt

[–] dan@upvote.au 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

OK, TIL you can just do <foo.txt. I didn't think that worked. Thanks!

[–] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

i don't think you can but idk why that's by I'm asking