What are the differences between commands "t.sh" ". t.sh" "/t.sh" "./t.sh"?

Asked Aug 23 '20 at 21:46

Active Aug 23 '20 at 23:29

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I am new in shells, so I stuck with this kind of question. What is the simplest way to differentiate those commands?

asked Aug 23 '20 at 21:46

Melody Shayron

81

1 Answers1

12

for t.sh the shell will search the PATH in order for a file named t.sh and execute it if it finds it
for . t.sh the shell will search the PATH in order for a file named t.sh but source it if it finds it.

In the case of the bash shell, the search behavior for sourced commands has additional considerations, as noted in man bash:

  When  bash  is  not  in  posix  mode,  the  current directory is
  searched if no file is found in PATH.  If the sourcepath  option
  to  the  shopt  builtin  command  is turned off, the PATH is not
  searched.

for /t.sh the shell will look for file t.sh in the filesystem root directory / and attempt to execute it
for ./t.sh the shell will look for file t.sh in the shell's current working directory . and attempt to execute it

See also

edited Aug 23 '20 at 23:29

answered Aug 23 '20 at 21:55

steeldriver

142,475