by fomine3 on 6/28/24, 12:09 PM with 2 comments
by pixelbeat on 6/28/24, 9:35 PM
One might be wondering why 'test' and '[' are separate binaries at all.
This is to give maximum flexibility wrt copying binaries etc.
Note one can build coreutils like busybox as a single binary,
by just `./configure --enable-single-binary` at build time.
This is already available as an option on Fedora at least through
the coreutils-single (1.2MB) package.
by sandywaffles on 6/28/24, 12:28 PM
I won't spoil the reason, but I have to say it's answers like the one given that make me feel like GNU coreutils is essentially decades of hacks thrown together haphazardly in a bunch of loosely related and begrudgingly coordinating pieces of software. I enjoy these code spelunking articles though!