🐱 kitten

Kitten is a Rust-powered reimplementation of the classic Unix cat command — built as part of a broader mission to make Linux tools more Rusty, secure, and modern.

It supports all common cat flags (including -A, -v, -E, -T, -b, -n, -s, -e, and -t) while offering a clean, safe codebase written entirely in Rust.

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📊 Performance

Binary	Size	Speed (10MB file)	Relative
cat	40 KB	3.9 ms	1.00x
kitten (release)	412 KB	8.0 ms	2.03x slower

Benchmarked with hyperfine on a UTF-8 test file.

🚀 Features

• -n, --number: Number all output lines.
• -b, --number-nonblank: Number non-blank lines only.
• -s, --squeeze-blank: Suppress repeated blank lines.
• -E, --show-ends: Display $ at the end of each line.
• -T, --show-tabs: Display tabs as ^I.
• -v, --show-nonprinting: Show non-printable characters (except tabs/newlines) as ^X.
• -A, --show-all: Equivalent to -v -E -T.
• -e: Equivalent to -v -E.
• -t: Equivalent to -v -T.
• -: Read from standard input (stdin).

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📆 Installation

🔹 Option 1: Download Prebuilt Release (Recommended)

Each release includes:

• A precompiled binary: kitten
• An assets/ directory with:
  • helpfile.txt
  • versionfile.txt

To install: Grab the latest release from the Releases page.

tar -xf kitten-v1.0.0-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
cd kitten-v1.0.0
chmod +x kitten
./kitten --help

🔥 Note: The assets/ directory must remain alongside the binary for help/version messages to work correctly.

🔹 Option 2: Build from Source (Requires cargo)

git clone https://github.com/Hunter2718/kitten.git
cd kitten
cargo build --release
./target/release/kitten --help

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💪 Usage

kitten [FLAGS] [FILES]...

Examples

• Number all lines:

  kitten -n file.txt

• Squeeze blank lines and show line ends:

  kitten -s -E file.txt

• Show tabs and non-printable characters:

  kitten -t -v file.txt

• Combine files and stdin:

  kitten -A - file1.txt file2.txt

• Read from standard input:

  echo -e "hi\tbye" | kitten -t -

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📂 Assets Directory

Kitten uses an assets/ directory to display user-facing information.

• assets/helpfile.txt: Custom help output for --help
• assets/versionfile.txt: Custom version output for --version

These files are required at runtime and are bundled with releases. Keep them next to the binary.

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🛠️ Transform Order

Kitten applies flags in the following order (to match GNU cat behavior):

1. -s squeeze blank lines
2. -T show tabs
3. -v show non-printables
4. -E show ends
5. -n or -b line numbering

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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🌱 Project Goals

Kitten is part of a broader initiative to rewrite essential Linux command-line tools in Rust, improving safety, readability, and long-term maintainability.

This project aims to:

• Deepen the developer’s understanding of systems-level Rust
• Serve as a proof-of-concept for Rust-powered coreutils
• Inspire others to join the Rustification of Linux

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, improvements, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome!

• Fork the repo
• Create a feature branch
• Submit a pull request

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🐾 Author

Made by me (Hunter2718)
Find me on GitHub: @Hunter2718

For questions, feedback, or ideas, open an issue.