Question

Which symbol is used to append an existing file?

(a) >

(b) <

(c) >>

(d) $

I have been asked this question during an online exam.

Query is from Displaying and Creating Files: cat Command in chapter Handling Ordinary Files of Unix

Answer 1

Right answer is (c) >>

To explain I would say: cat command overwrites the existing file if we try to create another file with a similar filename as an existing file. To avoid this we can use the >> operator. For example, if file01 already exists and we want to append it, then use the following command: