Which command would you use to list detailed information about files including permissions?

The command that lists detailed information about files, including their permissions, is "ls -l". This command is part of the ls (list) command family and specifically the -l option stands for "long format". When you use ls -l, it presents a detailed view of the files and directories in the current directory.

The output of this command includes various pieces of information, such as file type, permissions, number of links, owner, group, size, and timestamp of last modification, followed by the name of the file or directory. This level of detail makes it easy to see which users have access to specific files and what type of actions they can take with them based on the permissions assigned.

The other options do not provide this level of detail. Simply using ls would result in a basic list of files and directories without any additional information such as permissions. The cat command is intended for displaying the contents of files rather than file metadata, and the touch command is used for creating empty files or updating the timestamps of existing files. Thus, the ls -l command is the most appropriate choice for listing detailed file information.