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Deterministic builds are hard...really hard.

I'd have thought that deterministic builds are really simple unless your toolkit ecosystem is FUBAR. After all, a compiler is a simple function from input to output (unless the FUBAR ecosystem syndrome arises, as I said).

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Here is a not-in-depth look at what's involved in trying to generate byte-for byte binaries on msvc:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1180852/deterministic-bui...

In short, if you ignore certain things when comparing binaries and make sure you build things on absolute path of the same length(!), you can tell binaries are functionally equivalent.

Well, the parent poster would say that if binaries depend on the path length of build location, then that's evidence of a FUBAR toolchain :)

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