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I recently just wanted to look at the source code for sha1sum.

alec@ROOROO:~/tmp-source-study$ apt-get source sha1sum
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to find a source package for sha1sum

The next thing I did was to read the manual. The manual mentioned coreutils. But I don't see anything like sha1sum.c, and there's no associated Debian package for sha1sum, as far as I can tell.

What should I be doing to get the source code for this small, basic program without having to use a search engine, from the convenience of my shell?

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There is not necessarily a file named sha1sum.c. It can be basically any file or multiple files providing the functionality. If you grep for sha1 in the src folder you will notice that src/md5sum.c is the file used to compile sha1sum. Oh and jftr coretuils is the right package. – Ulrich Dangel Jun 12 '12 at 2:40

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

First, find which package the file is from:

% dpkg -S /usr/bin/sha1sum
coreutils: /usr/bin/sha1sum

And then install the source:

% apt-get source coreutils
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ok. i did do that originally, (except i didn't know dpkg -S: that's handy) but i guess i have to look harder for the source next time. – ixtmixilix Jun 12 '12 at 13:11

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