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Linux Cat (thelemmy.club)

ahh

~$ which cat
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[-] Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

I've always wondered what a good use case for tac would be...

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 3 points 17 hours ago

Reverse chronological order, mostly

tac log.txt |head # would give you newest first

no good for sort because sort already supports -r

no need it for tail on large files because tail already skips to the end.

I do a lot of impromptu bash to sus crap out of logs.

when you're balls deep in

cat log|grep -v foo| rev|cut -f 1-3 -d \ | |rev

Sometimes tac comes in clutch.

[-] Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 4 points 14 hours ago

That's fair. I'd usually just use less and drop to the end. My use cases would always need the older log before a newer log though because that's the start of the problem. At least that's how I operate.

this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
377 points (98.0% liked)

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