ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Cat (Unix)

A cat, just like the furry animal, is a computer command that can show you the contents of a file in the terminal on a Unix or Linux operating system.

Imagine you have a bunch of toys organized in a toy box, and each toy has a name written on it. The file is like a toy box and the cat command is like a way to peek into the toy box and see what toys are inside by reading their names.

When you type "cat" followed by the name of a file, it will show you the text contents of that file, just like how you can see the names of the toys when you peek inside the toy box.

It's a handy tool that programmers and computer users can use to quickly check the contents of a file without having to open it up in a separate program or application.
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