What is the fastest way to create a test file with some sample text?

• A. cat > file.txt
• B. echo "sample" > file.txt
• C. printf "sample" > file.txt
• D. touch file.txt

Answer: (A)

Using interactive input redirection with cat is the quickest way to create a file and populate it with text. When you run cat > file.txt, the file is created (or truncated if it already exists) and you can type the sample text directly. Pressing Ctrl-D finishes the input and saves exactly what you typed into the file. This avoids wrapping the text in quotes or escapes, which can slow you down for longer or multi-line samples. In contrast, echo or printf require you to specify the text on the command line (and usually need escaping or quoting for multi-word or multi-line content), while touch only creates an empty file with no content.