Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: How to add line numbers to a text file?
Message-ID: <14629@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 1 Dec 90 00:38:34 GMT
References: <6826@uceng.UC.EDU> <15248:Nov3018:01:4490@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <rhoward.659993691@romeo>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 25

In article <rhoward.659993691@romeo> rhoward@msd.gatech.edu (Robert L. Howard) writes:
>In <15248:Nov3018:01:4490@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>>In article <6826@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes:
>>> number a text file from a shell script, how would you do it? I'm
>>grep -n .*
>Huh?  This is not even a complete answer....

Actually, it's a pretty good answer, because it immediately leads one to
appreciate that the numbering can be tailored somewhat so that, for
instance, only non-blank lines are numbered, merely by altering the
search pattern.
0
>Try:
>>cat -n <infile >outfile
>(It's got to be faster than grep too)

It sure is faster:
	$ cat -n
	cat: illegal option -- n
	usage: cat -usvte [-|file] ...

The job of "cat" is to concatenate files, not to translate them.  (The
"-v" option (along with "-t" and "-e") is an abomination added at UCB.)

The best versions of "cat" have no options at all; they aren't needed.