bat
bat
TLDR
Pretty print the contents of one or more files to stdout
Concatenate several files into the target file
Remove decorations and disable paging (--style plain can be replaced with -p, or both options with -pp)
Highlight a specific line or a range of lines with a different background color
Show non-printable characters like space, tab or newline
Remove all decorations except line numbers in the output
Syntax highlight a JSON file by explicitly setting the language
Display all supported languages
USAGE
- bat [OPTIONS] [FILE]...
- "bat
DESCRIPTION
bat prints the syntax-highlighted content of a collection of FILEs to the terminal. If no FILE is specified, or when FILE is '-', it reads from standard input.
bat supports a large number of programming and markup languages. It also communicates with git(1) to show modifications with respect to the git index. bat automatically pipes its output through a pager (by default: less).
Whenever the output of bat goes to a non-interactive terminal, i.e. when the output is piped into another process or into a file, bat will act as a drop-in replacement for cat(1) and fall back to printing the plain file contents.
OPTIONS
General remarks: Command-line options like '-l'/'--language' that take values can be specified as either '--language value', '--language=value', '-l value' or '-lvalue'.
-A, --show-all
Show non-printable characters like space, tab or newline. Use '--tabs' to control the width of the tab-placeholders.
-p, --plain
Only show plain style, no decorations. This is an alias for '--style=plain'. When '-p' is used twice ('-pp'), it also disables automatic paging (alias for '--style=plain --pager=never').
-l, --language <language>
Explicitly set the language for syntax highlighting. The language can be specified as a name (like 'C++' or 'LaTeX') or possible file extension (like 'cpp', 'hpp' or 'md'). Use '--list-languages' to show all supported language names and file extensions.
-H, --highlight-line <N:M>...
Highlight the specified line ranges with a different background color. For example:
- --highlight-line 40
highlights line 40
- --highlight-line 30:40
highlights lines 30 to 40
- --highlight-line :40
highlights lines 1 to 40
- --highlight-line 40:
highlights lines 40 to the end of the file
--file-name <name>...
Specify the name to display for a file. Useful when piping data to bat from STDIN when bat does not otherwise know the filename. Note that the provided file name is also used for syntax detection.
-d, --diff
Only show lines that have been added/removed/modified with respect to the Git index. Use '--diff-context=N' to control how much context you want to see.
--diff-context <N>...
Include N lines of context around added/removed/modified lines when using '--diff'.
--tabs <T>
Set the tab width to T spaces. Use a width of 0 to pass tabs through directly
--wrap <mode>
Specify the text-wrapping mode (*auto*, never, character). The '--terminal-width' option can be used in addition to control the output width.
--terminal-width <width>
Explicitly set the width of the terminal instead of determining it automatically. If prefixed with '+' or '-', the value will be treated as an offset to the actual terminal width. See also: '--wrap'.
-n, --number
Only show line numbers, no other decorations. This is an alias for '--style=numbers'
--color <when>
Specify when to use colored output. The automatic mode only enables colors if an interactive terminal is detected. Possible values: *auto*, never, always.
--italic-text <when>
Specify when to use ANSI sequences for italic text in the output. Possible values: always, *never*.
--decorations <when>
Specify when to use the decorations that have been specified via '--style'. The automatic mode only enables decorations if an interactive terminal is detected. Possible values: *auto*, never, always.
-f, --force-colorization
Alias for '--decorations=always --color=always'. This is useful if the output of bat is piped to another program, but you want to keep the colorization/decorations.
--paging <when>
Specify when to use the pager. To disable the pager, use '--paging=never' or its alias, -P. To disable the pager permanently, set BAT_PAGER to an empty string. To control which pager is used, see the '--pager' option. Possible values: *auto*, never, always.
--pager <command>
Determine which pager is used. This option will override the PAGER and BAT_PAGER environment variables. The default pager is 'less'. To control when the pager is used, see the '--paging' option. Example: '--pager "less -RF"'.
-m, --map-syntax <glob-pattern:syntax-name>...
Map a glob pattern to an existing syntax name. The glob pattern is matched on the full path and the filename. For example, to highlight *.build files with the Python syntax, use -m '*.build:Python'. To highlight files named '.myignore' with the Git Ignore syntax, use -m '.myignore:Git Ignore'. Note that the right-hand side is the *name* of the syntax, not a file extension.
--theme <theme>
Set the theme for syntax highlighting. Use '--list-themes' to see all available themes. To set a default theme, add the '--theme="..."' option to the configuration file or export the BAT_THEME environment variable (e.g.: export BAT_THEME="...").
--list-themes
Display a list of supported themes for syntax highlighting.
--style <style-components>
Configure which elements (line numbers, file headers, grid borders, Git modifications, ..) to display in addition to the file contents. The argument is a comma-separated list of components to display (e.g. 'numbers,changes,grid') or a pre-defined style ('full'). To set a default style, add the '--style=".."' option to the configuration file or export the BAT_STYLE environment variable (e.g.: export BAT_STYLE=".."). Possible values: *auto*, full, plain, changes, header, grid, rule, numbers, snip.
-r, --line-range <N:M>...
Only print the specified range of lines for each file. For example:
- --line-range 30:40
prints lines 30 to 40
- --line-range :40
prints lines 1 to 40
- --line-range 40:
prints lines 40 to the end of the file
-L, --list-languages
Display a list of supported languages for syntax highlighting.
-u, --unbuffered
This option exists for POSIX-compliance reasons ('u' is for 'unbuffered'). The output is always unbuffered - this option is simply ignored.
-h, --help
Print this help message.
-V, --version
Show version information.
POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS
<FILE>...
Files to print and concatenate. Use a dash ('-') or no argument at all to read from standard input.
SUBCOMMANDS
cache - Modify the syntax-definition and theme cache.
FILES
bat can also be customized with a configuration file. The location of the file is dependent on your operating system. To get the default path for your system, call:
bat --config-file
Alternatively, you can use the BAT_CONFIG_PATH environment variable to point bat to a non-default location of the configuration file.
To generate a default configuration file, call:
bat --generate-config-file
ADDING CUSTOM LANGUAGES
bat supports Sublime Text .sublime-syntax language files, and can be customized to add additional languages to your local installation. To do this, add the .sublime-syntax language files to `$(bat --config-dir)/syntaxes` and run `bat cache --build`.
Example:
mkdir -p "$(bat --config-dir)/syntaxes"
cd "$(bat --config-dir)/syntaxes"# Put new '.sublime-syntax' language definition files
# in this folder (or its subdirectories), for example:
git clone https://github.com/tellnobody1/sublime-purescript-syntax# And then build the cache.
bat cache --build
Once the cache is built, the new language will be visible in `bat --list-languages`.
If you ever want to remove the custom languages, you can clear the cache with `bat cache --clear`.
ADDING CUSTOM THEMES
Similarly to custom languages, bat supports Sublime Text .tmTheme themes. These can be installed to `$(bat --config-dir)/themes`, and are added to the cache with `bat cache --build`.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information and up-to-date documentation, visit the bat repo:
https://github.com/sharkdp/bat