Why is /usr/bin/test 4kiB smaller than /usr/bin/[?
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Why is /usr/bin/test 4kiB smaller than /usr/bin/[?
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Re: Why is /usr/bin/test 4kiB smaller than /usr/bin/[?
#2I 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!
Re: Why is /usr/bin/test 4kiB smaller than /usr/bin/[?
#3One 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.