How to see or view the sourcecode of various linux commands

Ask Fedora
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how to see or view the code of various linux commands

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There is many ways to find the source code of packages that provide you commands.

You can go to https://src.fedoraproject.org/projects/rpms/* and search for the package you are interested in.

For the GNU tools that you can find in any Linux distro, I would go to GNU.org and browse their repo. For example: GNU Core Utilities - Git Repositories [Savannah], coreutils.git - GNU coreutils

Today, most code is somehow available on github and gitlab. Just search the internet for “ source code”

If you want to clone, edit, and merge code you should make use of git.

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I see you are an enthusiast eager to learn Linux!
That’s awesome … don’t forget to keep things in context (This is a place to ask about “Fedora”). But since Fedora is Linux, let’s see:

If you want to be viewing “source code” for commands, then go to the repository maintained by the developer for that command. Here is an example:

You know about dnf? You can see the source code of the popular package manager in Fedora. How? First find out where the code lives:

sudo dnf info dnf

Output: 
Installed Packages
    Name         : dnf
    Version      : 4.2.21
    Release      : 1.fc33
    Architecture : noarch
    Size         : 1.7 M
    Source       : dnf-4.2.21-1.fc33.src.rpm
    Repository   : @System
    From repo    : schemed-rawhide
    Summary      : Package manager
    URL          : https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf
    License      : GPLv2+ and GPLv2 and GPL
    Description  : Utility that allows users to manage packages on their systems.
                 : It supports RPMs, modules and comps groups & environments.

Take a look at the URL in that output. That is where dnf’s source code lives.
Have fun looking at the source codes of commands in Fedora.

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You can also get the exact source code that was used to built your software by using dnf to download the source version of a package instead of the compiled one.

dnf download <a package> --source

which will download a .src.rpm file - the source package, which contains the source files as well as a file with instructions to the system on how to build it. Check out this article for details - if you’re interested, it also explains how to actually build the package from the src.rpm you downloaded.

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