Pass through unix shell pipe

Question

What is the UNIX shell program that just returns input?

For example

> echo "test" | $pass
> test # output

codaddict · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-10 06:20:27Z

11

You can use cat.

When cat is used without any command line arguments. It just copies the standard input to standard output.

answered May 10, 2012 at 6:20

codaddict

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2 Comments

Anycorn Over a year ago

hmmm... I guess it is obvious - could not figure out though

glenn jackman Over a year ago

Also, to make clear that you want cat specifically to read stdin, there's cat -

zoul · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-10 06:21:46Z

1

cat

answered May 10, 2012 at 6:21

zoul

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

1

cat .

Note

There's also tac which performs the reverse of cat.

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered May 10, 2012 at 6:33

sashang

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1 Comment

Khouri Giordano Over a year ago

To be clear, tac prints the lines in reverse order.

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