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bat

A cat clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration

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File Management Development Productivity linuxmacoswindows Rust MIT

Description

bat is a cat replacement with syntax highlighting, Git integration, and automatic paging. It supports a large number of programming and markup languages and integrates with other tools as a previewer.

Install

homebrewbrew install bat
aptsudo apt install bat
pacmansudo pacman -S bat
cargocargo install bat

AI Summary

A cat(1) clone with wings. Displays files with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and git diff markers. Excellent as a previewer for other tools like fzf.

Capabilities

  • + Syntax highlighting for 200+ languages
  • + Git integration showing modified lines
  • + Automatic paging for long output
  • + Line numbers and line range selection
  • + Multiple themes (can match your terminal theme)
  • + Plain mode for piping (auto-detected)

Use When

  • → Viewing source code files in the terminal
  • → Need a syntax-highlighted previewer for fzf or other tools
  • → Want to see git changes inline while viewing a file
  • → Displaying code snippets with line numbers

Avoid When

  • x Piping binary data (bat auto-detects, but use cat explicitly)
  • x Need to concatenate files for processing (use cat)
  • x Headless environments where highlighting is wasted

Usage Patterns

View a file with syntax highlighting

bat src/main.rs

Displays the file with Rust syntax highlighting and line numbers

Show specific line range

bat --line-range 10:20 file.py

Display only lines 10-20 of the file

Use as a previewer in fzf

fzf --preview 'bat --color=always --line-range :500 {}'

Shows syntax-highlighted preview panel in fzf

View diff with syntax highlighting

bat --diff file.old file.new

Shows side-by-side diff with syntax highlighting

Input / Output

stdin: Text content to display (auto-detects language if possible)
stdout: Highlighted text with ANSI colors (plain text when piped)
Exit codes:
0 Success
1 Error

Typical Pipelines

fd -e py | fzf --preview 'bat --color=always {}' | xargs code
rg -l 'TODO' | xargs bat --line-range :500
git diff --name-only | xargs bat --diff

Related Tools

fzf complementary

bat provides the preview, fzf provides the selection
delta complementary

delta uses bat's syntax highlighting for git diffs
ripgrep complementary

Find files with rg, view them with bat
View AGENTS.md for bat