DFX CLI, just a question, why is "dfx build" not "dfx canister build"

Developers Command Line Tools
1

i think about it every time, shouldnt the build command be under dfx canister? just like dfx canister install and dfx canister create? wondering why for the placement-choice?

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2

Because it builds it for all the canisters in your dfx.json, not necessarily just for a single canister.

3

Erm, that’s not necessarily true. @levifeldman brings up a good point about the inconsistency in the cli api.

% dfx canister status  
error: The following required arguments were not provided:
    --all

USAGE:
    dfx canister status --all

For more information try --help
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4

Hm interesting, you’re right. I guess probably because building a canister is so common that they wanted to make the command short?

5

Because dfx-build does not involve any canisters. It builds code into a wasm module.

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6

But dfx deploy does though… :grinning: