lat

lat | lazy cat - a cat clone with some quality-of-life embellishments

About

lat is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's the awkward middle child in-between cat and bat. It was created because the author didn't want to have to configure bat just to get decent file printing, but wanted a little more control than cat offered.

lat does not expect to be used. lat expects to be forgotten and shunted into a corner because it does not belong in the slightest.

lat is fast. Here are the hyperfine results comparing cat, lat, and bat on a lat's main.c source file:

❯ hyperfine "./build/lat src/main.c" "cat src/main.c" "bat src/main.c"  -N --warmup 200
Benchmark 1: ./build/lat src/main.c
  Time (mean ± σ):       0.2 ms ±   0.0 ms    [User: 0.1 ms, System: 0.0 ms]
  Range (min … max):     0.1 ms …   0.7 ms    19651 runs
 
  Warning: Statistical outliers were detected. Consider re-running this benchmark on a quiet system without any interferences from other programs. It might help to use the '--warmup' or '--prepare' options.
 
Benchmark 2: cat src/main.c
  Time (mean ± σ):       0.2 ms ±   0.0 ms    [User: 0.2 ms, System: 0.0 ms]
  Range (min … max):     0.2 ms …   0.4 ms    13717 runs
 
  Warning: Statistical outliers were detected. Consider re-running this benchmark on a quiet system without any interferences from other programs. It might help to use the '--warmup' or '--prepare' options.
 
Benchmark 3: bat src/main.c
  Time (mean ± σ):       1.4 ms ±   0.7 ms    [User: 1.1 ms, System: 0.3 ms]
  Range (min … max):     1.1 ms …   6.5 ms    1057 runs
 
  Warning: The first benchmarking run for this command was significantly slower than the rest (2.8 ms). This could be caused by (filesystem) caches that were not filled until after the first run. You are already using the '--warmup' option which helps to fill these caches before the actual benchmark. You can either try to increase the warmup count further or re-run this benchmark on a quiet system in case it was a random outlier. Alternatively, consider using the '--prepare' option to clear the caches before each timing run.
 
Summary
  './build/lat src/main.c' ran
    1.29 ± 0.28 times faster than 'cat src/main.c'
    9.14 ± 4.56 times faster than 'bat src/main.c'

as you can see, the extra features do take their toll on performance, but overall, lat is generally nearly on-par with cat, and far faster than bat.

As of v0.12.2 lat is the new fastest of the three! (on my machine and with reasonably sized files)

Install

lat is not yet at a stable version (v1.0.0), so it is not on any package managers.

git clone https://github.com/secondary-smiles/lat.git

cd lat

make prep
make

./build/lat -V

# now add lat to your $PATH/do whatever you want with the binary

Use

lat can, for the most part, be a direct drop in for cat. However it really shines when embedded into another program. For example, in fzf, lat makes an excellent viewer with the command fzf --command lat -r {}.

Soon, I plan to add the ability to live-write to lat. That means that lat can become yet another output stream.

For example, this should be possible in a future version of lat

int main(void) {
  FILE *st = popen("lat -r", "w");
  if (st == NULL)
  	exit(1);

  fprintf(st, "look ma, i'm formatted!")

  pclose(st);
}

UPDATE: this feature is possible, however the data is only printed upon pclose.

Features and Flags

-c color

Completely disables or enables all colored output from lat.

-l line numbers

Print numbers for each line of the file.

-t file title

Shows or hides formatted file data headers.

-b binary mode

By default, lat will attempt to detect if the file is printable or not. If the file isn't (e.g. you ran lat file.pdf) then lat will enter binary mode. In binary mode, lat will skip a lot of processing in favor of speed. You can force binary mode to be on or off with the flags -b and -bb respectively.

-r raw output

lat is smart enough to print all non-file characters to a separate filestream. That way, the output of lat can be used to concatenate files, the way it was originally meant to be (with > or |). However, sometimes you want those extra symbols. -r prints everything out to the primary filestream (usually stdout)

-p pager

lat comes with out-of-the-box support for paging in less. If you don't want your file messing up your terminal, just -p it.

-n name

lat allows you to customize the name of the file shown. This can be useful in demonstrations or when lat is embedded in another program.

If there is a feature you'd like to see, feel free to make an issue (1x points). If you're feeling especially savvy, make a PR with the feature (10x points).

Helptext

lat -h

lat | lazy cat - a cat clone with some quality-of-life embellishments

usage: lat [-cltbrpneVh] [file...]

options:
	-c           toggle color
	-l           toggle line numbers
	-t           toggle file info headers
	-b           set binary mode, -b forces binary and -bb forces NOT binary
	-r           print everything (headers, line numbers, etc.) to stdout (or equivalent)
	-p           print file with the pager (uses less)
	-n <name>    manually set the name of the file shown in the title
	-e <program> link extension to lat
	-V           show program version
	-h           display this help text

environment:
	NO_COLOR, see https://no-color.org/