In short, unless you want the contents of a file printed to stdout (or multiple files concatenated), the command can probably be written without cat, instead using the filename as an argument (grep pattern file) or IO redirection (cmd < file).
Stylistics and readability are another thing though.
i was doing
cat ~/.bash_history | grep thingwhich is stupid so i started doinggrep "thing" ~/.bash_historynow you’re telling me i should do
history | grep thingi can’t win
Some would call the former command cat abuse.
In short, unless you want the contents of a file printed to stdout (or multiple files concatenated), the command can probably be written without
cat, instead using the filename as an argument (grep pattern file) or IO redirection (cmd < file).Stylistics and readability are another thing though.