Bat > Cat

The bat command enhances the behavior of cat by adding several cool features, such as:

• Syntax highlighting: Support most of the languages
• Git integration: Displays changes with Git.
• Show hidden characters: with options –show-all or -A
• Automatic paging: Similar to less, bat automatically handles long output.

To replace cat with bat, you can simply add an alias:

alias cat='bat --paging never --theme DarkNeon --style plain'

The style option defines the type of output you'd like:

• plain: Standard output (text with syntax highlighting).
• numbers: Shows line numbers.
• changes: Displays Git diff changes.

For standard cat, I leave the default style. However, for fzf integration, I add an alias to preview files with line numbers and Git diffs:

alias fzfb='fzf --preview "bat --color always --style numbers, changes {}"'

A useful integration with bat:

tail -f /var/log/pacman.log | bat --paging=never -l log

Also with Git: You can customize the preview style with different themes:

bat --list-themes # Default themes
# you can add others
git clone https://github.com/greggb/sublime-snazzy
# Update the binary cache
bat cache --build

More info on official git