On Mon, Sep 05, 2005 at 04:56:48AM -0700, Steve Holmes wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > ... > Why is that first period necessary? I've seen that from time to time in > Slackware startup scripts but I never knew why and when I've added > commands to my own startup scripts, I usually leave it out with no known > effects. > The leading period forces a command or script to run in the current shell instead of in a subshell. This is sometimes necessary, especially where user defined functions or environment variables are to be defined and used in the current shell as well as all of the subshells run from within the current shell. For example, running the following command from the console: /etc/bashrc might not allow any variables or functions to be usable in the current console, while the command: . /etc/bashrc will allow any changes in the /etc/bashrc file to be effective immediately. See the 'bash' man page for more details. HTH, and have a _great_ day. -- Ralph. N6BNO. Wisdom comes from central processing, not from I/O. rreid at sunset.net http://personalweb.sunset.net/~rreid ...passing through The City of Internet at the speed of light! PARABOLA = x ^ 2
