How do you display the contents of a file in the terminal?

Using the cat command is the most straightforward and commonly used method to display the contents of a file in the terminal. The cat command, short for "concatenate," not only allows you to view the contents of a single file but can also combine and display multiple files at once. When executed with a filename as an argument, it reads the content of the file and outputs it directly to the terminal. This makes it particularly useful for quickly inspecting text files without needing to enter a text editor.

The view command is designed for a read-only mode of the vi text editor, allowing you to view files with some editing capabilities but isn't as direct as cat for simply displaying file contents. The ls command is used to list directory contents, not to view the contents of a file. Lastly, the display command does not exist in the context of basic file viewing in Linux; the functions associated with it usually pertain to graphical file display, depending on specific applications, but not to standard terminal use for viewing text files. Therefore, cat remains the preferred and correct tool for this task.