├── LICENSE.md
├── README.md
└── good-cat


/LICENSE.md:
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 1 | MIT License
 2 | 
 3 | Copyright (c) 2022 Andrew Lilley Brinker
 4 | 
 5 | Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 6 | of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
 7 | in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
 8 | to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
 9 | copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
10 | furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
11 | 
12 | The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
13 | copies or substantial portions of the Software.
14 | 
15 | THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
16 | IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
17 | FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
18 | AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
19 | LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
20 | OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
21 | SOFTWARE.
22 | 


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/README.md:
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 1 | # `good-cat`
 2 | 
 3 | __This cat hates pipes.__
 4 | 
 5 | `good-cat` is a `cat` that can't be piped. If you try, it refuses and exits with an error code. This way, no uses of `good-cat` are unnecessary [citation needed].
 6 | 
 7 | ## Explanation
 8 | 
 9 | Some people think all `cat`s should hate pipes, but the `cat`s on any
10 | platform you find will go through pipes just fine. For people that can't stand
11 | `cat`s in pipes, they can use `good-cat` instead.
12 | 
13 | Antipipeists will tell you that it creates a unneeded process, it stops the
14 | piped-to process from getting random access to the contents of the file, and it
15 | abuses the original purpose of `cat`. To those people I say: who cares?
16 | 
17 | If the random access vs. stream-of-bytes problem is measured as an actual issue,
18 | then sure, change it. If your platform is actually having issues related to too
19 | many processes because of excess of `cat`-into-pipe, then yeah stop doing that.
20 | I wager that neither of these problems happen often.
21 | 
22 | But hey, if someone's really set on complaining, you can show them a `good-cat`
23 | they'll love.
24 | 
25 | ## Usage
26 | 
27 | For best results, set `alias cat="good-cat"` in your shell configuration file.
28 | 
29 | ```sh
30 | $ # A bad cat
31 | $ cat /var/log/apache2/access.log | awk '{print $1}'
32 | $ # A good cat
33 | $ good-cat /var/log/apache2/access.log | awk '{print $1}'
34 | $ # DOESN'T WORK!
35 | $ # So you do this instead.
36 | $ awk '{print $1}' /var/log/apache2/access.log
37 | ```
38 | 
39 | ## Contributing
40 | 
41 | `good-cat` is maximally good and feature-complete [citation needed].
42 | 
43 | ## License
44 | 
45 | `good-cat` is MIT licensed. See the `LICENSE.md` file for the license text.
46 | 


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/good-cat:
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 1 | #!/usr/bin/env sh
 2 | 
 3 | # This cat hates pipes.
 4 | 
 5 | # Exit with an error if output is piped and there's only one positional
 6 | # parameter.
 7 | [ -t 1 -o $# -ne 1 ] || exit 1
 8 | 
 9 | # Exit with an error if 'cat' doesn't exist
10 | command -v cat >/dev/null 2>&1 || exit 1
11 | 
12 | # Otherwise, run 'cat'
13 | exec cat "$@"
14 | 


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