wildcat

wildcat is a small Unix-style command-line tool written in Go. It behaves like cat, reading from files or standard input and writing to standard output.

The project is intentionally minimal to improve my understanding of POSIX-style I/O, streams, and command-line behavior. Install and tell me how you feel about it.

Installation

There are three supported installation methods. Choose the one that best fits your environment.

Option 1 — Install with `go install` (Recommended for Go users)

If you already have Go installed, this is the easiest and most portable option.

go install github.com/Stevepurpose/wildcat@latest

This installs wildcat into your Go bin directory (usually $HOME/go/bin). Ensure that directory is in your PATH.

Go automatically builds the correct binary for your operating system and architecture.

Option 2 — Download a prebuilt binary

For serswwho don't use or have Golang. Prebuilt binaries are available on the GitHub Releases page. Choose the binary that matches your operating system.

Example (Linux amd64):

chmod +x wildcat-linux-amd64
sudo mv wildcat-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/wildcat

After this, you can run:

wildcat filename.txt

Prebuilt binaries already contain compiled code. The chmod +x step makes the file executable on Unix-like systems.

Option 3 — Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Stevepurpose/wildcat.git
cd wildcat
go build
sudo mv wildcat /usr/local/bin/

This compiles the binary locally using your installed Go toolchain.

Usage

wildcat file1.txt file2.txt

If no filenames are provided, wildcat reads from standard input:

echo "hello world" | wildcat