Repository files navigation

Acat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.

Key Features •How To Use •Installation •Customization •Project goals, alternatives
[English] [中文] [日本語] [한국어] [Русский]

A specialthank you goes to our biggestsponsors:

Warp, the intelligent terminal
_{Available on MacOS, Linux, Windows}

bat supports syntax highlighting for a large number of programming and markuplanguages:

bat communicates withgit to show modifications with respect to the index(see left side bar):

You can use the-A/--show-all option to show and highlight non-printablecharacters:

By default,bat pipes its own output to a pager (e.g.less) if the output is too large for one screen.If you would ratherbat work likecat all the time (never page output), you can set--paging=never as an option, either on the command line or in your configuration file.If you intend to aliascat tobat in your shell configuration, you can usealias cat='bat --paging=never' to preserve the default behavior.

Even with a pager set, you can still usebat to concatenate files 😉.Wheneverbat detects a non-interactive terminal (i.e. when you pipe into another process or into a file),bat will act as a drop-in replacement forcat and fall back to printing the plain file contents, regardless of the--pager option's value.

Display a single file on the terminal

bat README.md

Display multiple files at once

bat src/*.rs

Read from stdin, determine the syntax automatically (note, highlighting willonly work if the syntax can be determined from the first line of the file,usually through a shebang such as#!/bin/sh)

curl -s https://sh.rustup.rs| bat

Read from stdin, specify the language explicitly

yaml2json .travis.yml| json_pp| bat -l json

Show and highlight non-printable characters:

bat -A /etc/hosts

Use it as acat replacement:

bat> note.md# quickly create a new filebat header.md content.md footer.md> document.mdbat -n main.rs# show line numbers (only)bat f - g# output 'f', then stdin, then 'g'.

You can usebat as a previewer forfzf. To do this,usebat's--color=always option to force colorized output. You can also use--line-rangeoption to restrict the load times for long files:

fzf --preview"bat --color=always --style=numbers --line-range=:500 {}"

For more information, seefzf'sREADME.

You can use the-exec option offind to preview all search results withbat:

find … -exec bat {} +

If you happen to usefd, you can use the-X/--exec-batch option to do the same:

fd … -X bat

Withbatgrep,bat can be used as the printer forripgrep search results.

batgrep needle src/

bat can be combined withtail -f to continuously monitor a given file with syntax highlighting.

tail -f /var/log/pacman.log| bat --paging=never -l log

Note that we have to switch off paging in order for this to work. We have also specified the syntaxexplicitly (-l log), as it can not be auto-detected in this case.

You can combinebat withgit show to view an older version of a given file with proper syntaxhighlighting:

git show v0.6.0:src/main.rs| bat -l rs

You can combinebat withgit diff to view lines around code changes with proper syntaxhighlighting:

batdiff() {    git diff --name-only --relative --diff-filter=d -z| xargs -0 bat --diff}

If you prefer to use this as a separate tool, check outbatdiff inbat-extras.

If you are looking for more support for git and diff operations, check outdelta.

The line numbers and Git modification markers in the output ofbat can make it hard to copythe contents of a file. To prevent this, you can callbat with the-p/--plain option orsimply pipe the output intoxclip:

bat main.cpp| xclip

bat will detect that the output is being redirected and print the plain file contents.

bat can be used as a colorizing pager forman, by setting theMANPAGER environment variable:

export MANPAGER="bat -plman"man 2select

(replacebat withbatcat if you are on Debian or Ubuntu)

If you prefer to have this bundled in a new command, you can also usebatman.

Note that theManpage syntax is developed in this repository and still needs some work.

Theprettybat script is a wrapper that will format code and print it withbat.

You can usebat to colorize help text:$ cp --help | bat -plhelp

You can also use a wrapper around this:

# in your .bashrc/.zshrc/*rcalias bathelp='bat --plain --language=help'help() {"$@" --help2>&1| bathelp}

Then you can do$ help cp or$ help git commit.

When you are usingzsh, you can also use global aliases to override-h and--help entirely:

alias -g -- -h='-h 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'alias -g -- --help='--help 2>&1 | bat --language=help --style=plain'

Forfish, you can use abbreviations:

abbr-a--position anywhere ----help'--help | bat -plhelp'abbr-a--position anywhere ---h'-h | bat -plhelp'

This way, you can keep on usingcp --help, but get colorized help pages.

Be aware that in some cases,-h may not be a shorthand of--help (for example withls). In cases where you need to use-has a command argument you can prepend\ to the argument (eg.ls \-h) to escape the aliasing defined above.

Please report any issues with the help syntax inthis repository.

... and other Debian-based Linux distributions.

bat is available onUbuntu since 20.04 ("Focal") andDebian since August 2021 (Debian 11 - "Bullseye").

If your Ubuntu/Debian installation is new enough you can simply run:

sudo apt install bat

Important: If you installbat this way, please note that the executable may be installed asbatcat instead ofbat (due toa nameclash with another package). You can set up abat -> batcat symlink or alias to prevent any issues that may come up because of this and to be consistent with other distributions:

mkdir -p~/.local/binln -s /usr/bin/batcat~/.local/bin/bat

an example alias forbatcat asbat:

alias bat="batcat"

... and other Debian-based Linux distributions.

If the package has not yet been promoted to your Ubuntu/Debian installation, or you wantthe most recent release ofbat, download the latest.deb package from therelease page and install it via:

sudo dpkg -i bat_0.18.3_amd64.deb# adapt version number and architecture

You can installthebat packagefrom the official sources, provided you have the appropriate repository enabled:

apk add bat

You can installthebat packagefrom the official sources:

pacman -S bat

You can installthebat package from the officialFedora Modular repository.

dnf install bat

You can installthebat packagefrom the official sources:

emerge sys-apps/bat

You can install a precompiledbat package with pkg:

pkg install bat

or build it on your own from the FreeBSD ports:

cd /usr/ports/textproc/batmake install

You can installbat package usingpkg_add(1):

pkg_add bat

You can installbat using thenix package manager:

nix-env -i bat

You can installbat with zypper:

zypper install bat

There is currently no recommended snap package available.Existing packages may be available, but are not officially supported and may containissues.

You can installbat withHomebrew:

brew install bat

Or installbat withMacPorts:

port install bat

There are a few options to installbat on Windows. Once you have installedbat,take a look at the"Usingbat on Windows" section.

You will need to install theVisual C++ Redistributable

You can installbat viaWinGet:

winget install sharkdp.bat

You can installbat viaChocolatey:

choco install bat

You can installbat viascoop:

scoop install bat

You can download prebuilt binaries from theRelease page,

You will need to install theVisual C++ Redistributable package.

Check out theRelease page forprebuilt versions ofbat for many different architectures. Statically-linkedbinaries are also available: look for archives withmusl in the file name.

If you want to buildbat from source, you need Rust 1.79.0 orhigher. You can then usecargo to build everything:

cargo install --path. --locked

cargo install --locked bat

Note that additional files like the man page or shell completionfiles can not be installed automatically in both these ways.If installing from a local source, they will be generated bycargoand should be available in the cargo target folder underbuild.

Furthermore, shell completions are also available by running:

bat --completion<shell># see --help for supported shells

Usebat --list-themes to get a list of all available themes for syntaxhighlighting. By default,bat usesMonokai Extended orMonokai Extended Lightfor dark and light themes respectively. To select theTwoDark theme, callbatwith the--theme=TwoDark option or set theBAT_THEME environment variable toTwoDark. Useexport BAT_THEME="TwoDark" in your shell's startup file tomake the change permanent. Alternatively, usebat'sconfiguration file.

If you want to preview the different themes on a custom file, you can usethe following command (you needfzf for this):

bat --list-themes| fzf --preview="bat --theme={} --color=always /path/to/file"

bat automatically picks a fitting theme depending on your terminal's background color.You can use the--theme-dark /--theme-light options or theBAT_THEME_DARK /BAT_THEME_LIGHT environment variablesto customize the themes used. This is especially useful if you frequently switch between dark and light mode.

You can also use a custom theme by following the'Adding new themes' section below.

bat has three themes that always use8-bit colors,even when truecolor support is available:

• ansi looks decent on any terminal. It uses 3-bit colors: black, red, green,yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white.
• base16 is designed forbase16 terminal themes. It uses4-bit colors (3-bit colors plus bright variants) in accordance with thebase16 styling guidelines.
• base16-256 is designed fortinted-shell.It replaces certain bright colors with 8-bit colors from 16 to 21.Do not use this simplybecause you have a 256-color terminal but are not using tinted-shell.

Although these themes are more restricted, they have three advantages over truecolor themes. They:

• Enjoy maximum compatibility. Some terminal utilities do not support more than 3-bit colors.
• Adapt to terminal theme changes. Even for already printed output.
• Visually harmonize better with other terminal software.

You can use the--style option to control the appearance ofbat's output.You can use--style=numbers,changes, for example, to show only Git changesand line numbers but no grid and no file header. Set theBAT_STYLE environmentvariable to make these changes permanent or usebat'sconfiguration file.

By default,bat only shows decorations (such as line numbers, file headers, grid borders, etc.) when outputting to an interactive terminal. You can control this behavior with the--decorations option. Use--decorations=always to show decorations even when piping output to another command, or--decorations=never to disable them entirely. Possible values areauto (default),never, andalways.

There is also the--force-colorization option, which is an alias for--decorations=always --color=always. This is useful if you want to keep colorization and decorations when pipingbat's output to another program.

Should you find that a particular syntax is not available withinbat, you can follow theseinstructions to easily add new syntaxes to your currentbat installation.

bat uses the excellentsyntectlibrary for syntax highlighting.syntect can read anySublime Text.sublime-syntax fileand theme.

A good resource for finding Sublime Syntax packages isPackage Control. Once you found asyntax:

1. Create a folder with syntax definition files:

   mkdir -p"$(bat --config-dir)/syntaxes"cd"$(bat --config-dir)/syntaxes"# Put new '.sublime-syntax' language definition files# in this folder (or its subdirectories), for example:git clone https://github.com/tellnobody1/sublime-purescript-syntax

2. Now use the following command to parse these files into a binary cache:

   bat cache --build

3. Finally, usebat --list-languages to check if the new languages are available.

   If you ever want to go back to the default settings, call:

   bat cache --clear

4. If you think that a specific syntax should be included inbat by default, pleaseconsider opening a "syntax request" ticket after reading the policies andinstructionshere:Open Syntax Request.

This works very similar to how we add new syntax definitions.

First, create a folder with the new syntax highlighting themes:

mkdir -p"$(bat --config-dir)/themes"cd"$(bat --config-dir)/themes"# Download a theme in '.tmTheme' format, for example:git clone https://github.com/greggb/sublime-snazzy# Update the binary cachebat cache --build

Finally, usebat --list-themes to check if the new themes are available.

You can add new (or change existing) file name patterns using the--map-syntaxcommand line option. The option takes an argument of the formpattern:syntax wherepattern is a glob pattern that is matched against the file name andthe absolute file path. Thesyntax part is the full name of a supported language(usebat --list-languages for an overview).

Note: You probably want to use this option asan entry inbat's configuration filefor persistence instead of passing it on the command line as a one-off. Generallyyou'd just use-l if you want to manually specify a language for a file.

Example: To use "INI" syntax highlighting for all files with a.conf file extension, use

--map-syntax='*.conf:INI'

Example: To open all files called.ignore (exact match) with the "Git Ignore" syntax, use:

--map-syntax='.ignore:Git Ignore'

Example: To open all.conf files in subfolders of/etc/apache2 with the "Apache Conf"syntax, use (this mapping is already built in):

--map-syntax='/etc/apache2/**/*.conf:Apache Conf'

bat uses the pager that is specified in thePAGER environment variable. If this variable is notset,less is used by default. You can also use bat's built-in pager with--pager=builtin orby setting theBAT_PAGER environment variable to "builtin".

If you want to use a different pager, you can either modify thePAGER variable or set theBAT_PAGER environment variable to override what is specified inPAGER.

If you want to pass command-line arguments to the pager, you can also set them via thePAGER/BAT_PAGER variables:

export BAT_PAGER="less -RFK"

Instead of using environment variables, you can also usebat'sconfiguration file to configure the pager (--pager option).

When usingless as a pager,bat will automatically pass extra options along tolessto improve the experience. Specifically,-R/--RAW-CONTROL-CHARS,-F/--quit-if-one-screen,-K/--quit-on-intr and under certain conditions,-X/--no-init and/or-S/--chop-long-lines.

The-R/--RAW-CONTROL-CHARS option is needed to interpret ANSI colors correctly.

The-F/--quit-if-one-screen option instructsless to exit immediately if the output size is smaller thanthe vertical size of the terminal. This is convenient for small files because you do nothave to pressq to quit the pager.

The-K/--quit-on-intr option instructsless to exit immediately when an interrupt signal is received.This is useful to ensure thatless quits together withbat on SIGINT.

The-X/--no-init option is added to versions ofless older than version 530 (older than 558 on Windows) tofix a bug with the-F/--quit-if-one-screen feature. Unfortunately, it also breaks mouse-wheel support inless.If you want to enable mouse-wheel scrolling on older versions ofless and do not mind losingthe quit-if-one-screen feature, you can set the pager (via--pager orBAT_PAGER) toless -R.Forless 530 or newer, it should work out of the box.

The-S/--chop-long-lines option is added whenbat's-S/--chop-long-lines option is used. This tellslessto truncate any lines larger than the terminal width.

bat expands tabs to 4 spaces by itself, not relying on the pager. To change this, simply add the--tabs argument with the number of spaces you want to be displayed.

Note: Defining tab stops for the pager (via the--pager argument bybat, or via theLESSenvironment variable forless) won't be taken into account because the pager will already getexpanded spaces instead of tabs. This behaviour is added to avoid indentation issues caused by thesidebar. Callingbat with--tabs=0 will override it and let tabs be consumed by the pager.

If you make use of the dark mode feature inmacOS, you might want to configurebat to use a differenttheme based on the OS theme. The following snippet uses thedefault theme when in thedark modeand theGitHub theme when in thelight mode.

alias cat="bat --theme auto:system --theme-dark default --theme-light GitHub"

The same dark mode feature is now available inGNOME and affects theorg.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme setting. The following code converts the above to use said setting.

# .bashrcsys_color_scheme_is_dark() {    condition=$(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme)    condition=$(echo"$condition"| tr -d"[:space:]'")if [$condition=="prefer-dark" ];thenreturn 0elsereturn 1fi}bat_alias_wrapper() {#get color scheme    sys_color_scheme_is_darkif [[$?-eq 0 ]];then# bat command with dark color scheme        bat --theme=default"$@"else# bat command with light color scheme        bat --theme=GitHub"$@"fi}alias cat='bat_alias_wrapper'

bat can also be customized with a configuration file. The location of the file is dependenton your operating system. To get the default path for your system, call

bat --config-file

Alternatively, you can useBAT_CONFIG_PATH orBAT_CONFIG_DIR environment variables to pointbatto a non-default location of the configuration file or the configuration directory respectively:

export BAT_CONFIG_PATH="/path/to/bat/bat.conf"export BAT_CONFIG_DIR="/path/to/bat"

A default configuration file can be created with the--generate-config-file option.

bat --generate-config-file

There is also now a systemwide configuration file, which is located under/etc/bat/config onLinux and Mac OS andC:\ProgramData\bat\config on windows. If the system wide configurationfile is present, the content of the user configuration will simply be appended to it.

The configuration file is a simple list of command line arguments. Usebat --help to see a full list of possible options and values. In addition, you can add comments by prepending a line with the# character.

Example configuration file:

# Set the theme to "TwoDark"--theme="TwoDark"# Show line numbers, Git modifications and file header (but no grid)--style="numbers,changes,header"# Use italic text on the terminal (not supported on all terminals)--italic-text=always# Use C++ syntax for Arduino .ino files--map-syntax"*.ino:C++"

bat mostly works out-of-the-box on Windows, but a few features may need extra configuration.

You will need to install theVisual C++ Redistributable package.

Windows only includes a very limited pager in the form ofmore. You can download a Windows binaryforlessfrom its homepage orthroughChocolatey. To use it, place the binary in a directory inyourPATH ordefine an environment variable. TheChocolatey package installsless automatically.

Windows 10 natively supports colors in bothconhost.exe (Command Prompt) and PowerShell sincev1511, aswell as in newer versions of bash. On earlier versions of Windows, you can useCmder, which includesConEmu.

Note: Old versions ofless do not correctly interpret colors on Windows. To fix this, you can add the optional Unix tools to your PATH when installing Git. If you don’t have any other pagers installed, you can disable paging entirely by passing--paging=never or by settingBAT_PAGER to an empty string.

bat on Windows does not natively support Cygwin's unix-style paths (/cygdrive/*). When passed an absolute cygwin path as an argument,bat will encounter the following error:The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)

This can be solved by creating a wrapper or adding the following function to your.bash_profile file:

bat() {local indexlocal args=("$@")forindexin$(seq 0${#args[@]});docase"${args[index]}"in        -*)continue;;*)  [-e"${args[index]}" ]&& args[index]="$(cygpath --windows"${args[index]}")";;esacdonecommand bat"${args[@]}"}

If an input file contains color codes or other ANSI escape sequences or control characters,bat will have problemsperforming syntax highlighting and text wrapping, and thus the output can become garbled.

If your version ofbat supports the--strip-ansi=auto option, it can be used to remove such sequencesbefore syntax highlighting. Alternatively, you may disable both syntax highlighting and wrapping bypassing the--color=never --wrap=never options tobat.

bat handles terminalswith andwithout truecolor support. However, the colors in most syntaxhighlighting themes are not optimized for 8-bit colors. It is therefore strongly recommendedthat you use a terminal with 24-bit truecolor support (terminator,konsole,iTerm2, ...),or use one of the basic8-bit themes designed for a restricted set of colors.Seethis article for more details and a full list ofterminals with truecolor support.

Make sure that your truecolor terminal sets theCOLORTERM variable to eithertruecolor or24bit. Otherwise,bat will not be able to determine whether or not 24-bit escape sequencesare supported (and fall back to 8-bit colors).

Please try a different theme (seebat --list-themes for a list). TheOneHalfDark andOneHalfLight themes provide grid and line colors that are brighter.

bat natively supports UTF-8 as well as UTF-16. For every other file encoding, you may need toconvert to UTF-8 first because the encodings can typically not be auto-detected. You caniconvto do so.Example: if you have a PHP file in Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) encoding, you can call:

iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 my-file.php| bat

Note: you might have to use the-l/--language option if the syntax can not be auto-detectedbybat.

# Recursive clone to retrieve all submodulesgit clone --recursive https://github.com/sharkdp/bat# Build (debug version)cd batcargo build --bins# Run unit tests and integration testscargotest# Install (release version)cargo install --path. --locked# Build a bat binary with modified syntaxes and themesbash assets/create.shcargo install --path. --locked --force

If you want to build an application that usesbat's pretty-printingfeatures as a library, check out thethe API documentation.Note that you have to use eitherregex-onig orregex-fancy as a featurewhen you depend onbat as a library.

Take a look at theCONTRIBUTING.md guide.

• sharkdp
• eth-p
• keith-hall
• Enselic

SeeSECURITY.md.

bat tries to achieve the following goals:

• Provide beautiful, advanced syntax highlighting
• Integrate with Git to show file modifications
• Be a drop-in replacement for (POSIX)cat
• Offer a user-friendly command-line interface

There are a lot of alternatives, if you are looking for similar programs. Seethis document for a comparison.

Copyright (c) 2018-2025bat-developers.

bat is made available under the terms of either the MIT License or the Apache License 2.0, at your option.

See theLICENSE-APACHE andLICENSE-MIT files for license details.