Which command would you use to view the contents of a file in the terminal?

The command used to view the contents of a file in the terminal is 'cat'. This command stands for "concatenate" and is commonly used to display the contents of a file directly in the terminal window. When executed with the filename as an argument, cat reads the file and outputs its content to the standard output (usually the terminal screen). This makes it a straightforward tool for quickly checking the contents of files without any extra formatting or editing features.

While 'view' is another command related to file viewing, it primarily opens files in a read-only mode using the vi editor. This command offers more functionality, including navigation and text manipulation, but it is not as direct as cat for simply displaying file contents.

The command 'open' is typically used in graphical user interfaces to open applications or files in their associated programs and is not relevant for terminal-based file viewing. Lastly, 'edit' is not a standard command in Linux; rather, it may refer to text editors that are used for modifying files rather than viewing them.

Thus, cat is the most appropriate command for simply viewing the content of a file in the terminal environment.