plakar cat reads files from within snapshots and writes to the standard output,
similarly to the standard Unix command cat(1),
without holding the files in memory or requiring a complete file restore first:
it is fast and suitable for large files.
plakar cat snapshotID:/path/to/file [snapshotID:/path/to/file]
Using grep to search for the root account in the /private/etc/passwd file of snapshot b3,
then using wc to count how many lines are in that file:
$ plakar cat b3:/private/etc/passwd | grep ^root:
root:*:0:0:System Administrator:/var/root:/bin/sh
$ plakar cat b3:/private/etc/passwd | wc -l
267