trying to avoid printing binary files to STDOUT

Often, in a bout of great stupidity, I end up catting files I shouldn't.
eg. executibles, files with encoded or encrypted data etc. I assume this is
generically binary / non-text data.

This ends up in me screwing up my terminal unto a unresponsive state with
oodles of junk characters on my screen.

Is there a way to "idiot proof" my shell so that "something" comes in the
way of me doing this? Maybe a wrapper around cat etc. Or a way to get out
of this once my shell starts to hang on those strange characters?

--
Rahul
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: trying to avoid printing binary files to STDOUT
    ... eg. executibles, files with encoded or encrypted data etc. ... This ends up in me screwing up my terminal unto a unresponsive state with ... oodles of junk characters on my screen. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: trying to avoid printing binary files to STDOUT
    ... files with encoded or encrypted data etc. ... oodles of junk characters on my screen. ... Maybe a wrapper around cat etc. ... Or you can switch to another window if you're using X, ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: trying to avoid printing binary files to STDOUT
    ... files with encoded or encrypted data etc. ... This ends up in me screwing up my terminal unto a unresponsive state with ... oodles of junk characters on my screen. ... Maybe a wrapper around cat etc. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: trying to avoid printing binary files to STDOUT
    ... files with encoded or encrypted data etc. ... This ends up in me screwing up my terminal unto a unresponsive state with ... oodles of junk characters on my screen. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)