What does the -A option in the cat command do?

The -A option in the cat command is used to display non-printing characters in a visible format. This includes showing tabs as ^I and line endings as $. It is useful for debugging or when you want to see the exact content of a file, including whitespace characters.

Here’s an example of how to use it:

cat -A filename.txt

This command will display the contents of filename.txt, showing non-printing characters in a way that makes them visible.