How do I read the source code of shell commands?
command, gnu-coreutils, linux
Solution
All these basic commands are part of the `coreutils` package.
You can find all information you need here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/
If you want to download the latest source, you should use git:
`git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/coreutils`
To install git on your Ubuntu machine, you should use apt-get (git is not included in the standard Ubuntu installation):
`sudo apt-get install git`
Truth to be told, here you can find specific source for the `ls` command:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/ls.c
Only 4984 code lines for a command 'easy enough' as `ls`... are you still interested in reading it?? Good luck! :D
Problem
I would like to read the actual source code which the linux commands are written with. I've gained some experience using them and now I think it's time to interact with my machine at a deeper level. I've found some commands here http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/GNU. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find basic commands such as 'ls' which seems to me easy enough to begin. How exactly do I read the source code of the simple shell commands like 'ls'? I'm running on Ubuntu 12.04