bat

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Resources

GitHub

Package information

bat is a cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for sys-apps/bat cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration

debug

Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2026-05-28 14:49 More information about USE flags

Emerge

root #emerge --ask sys-apps/bat

Usage

Printing a file

To print the contents of a file, run bat:

user $bat file.txt

Listing languages

To list available languages, use -L or --list-languages:

user $bat --list-languages

Selecting a language

To select a language type of the file, use the -l or --language arguments:

user $bat --language py script

Configuration

Default config

To generate the default config one can run

user $bat --generate-config-file

Use terminal colors

To make bat use terminal colors instead of it's built-in colorscheme one can use

user $bat --theme ansi

or

Set the theme in the config file

FILE ~/.config/bat/configbat config

--theme="ansi"

Make bat work more like cat

Set the pager to never and the style to plain in the config file

FILE ~/.config/bat/configbat config

--pager=never
--style=plain