You are reading contents of a local file in a Terraform configuration. Which built-in function should you use to import the file's contents as a string?

• A. fileset("id_rsa.pub")
• B. file("id_rsa.pub")
• C. templatefile("id_rsa.pub")
• D. filebase64("id_rsa.pub")

Answer: (B)

Reading a local file’s contents as a string in Terraform is done with the file() function. It takes the file path and returns the raw text contents, so using file("id_rsa.pub") loads that file into a string for use in your configuration. The other options don’t fit: fileset returns a set of filenames rather than contents; templatefile processes a template and requires placeholders to render; filebase64 returns the base64-encoded contents, not the plain string. So for a plain string read, the best choice is file("id_rsa.pub").