./ Why? Post: 61010

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers ./ Why? Post 61010 by 98_1LE on Wednesday 26th of January 2005 08:38:03 PM

01-26-2005

Registered User

It has nothing at all to do with $HOME not being in $PATH, well unless the script is in $HOME.

UNIX uses an environment variable $PATH as a colon delimited list to define directories to be searched for commands entered into the shell. If $PATH is st to /usr/bin only, when you type ls, it looks in /usr/bin for something called ls, then tries to execute it. If ls is not in /usr/bin, it returns a file not found error.

Typically the path is set to a limited number of directories to make searches quick. If you want to exectute something not in a directory in $PATH, you have to specify the path to it. You can do this explicitely from root (example: /usr/bin/ls ), relative to where you are ( cd / ; usr/bin/ls ), or if it is in the directory you are in, with ./ ( cd /usr/bin ; ./ls ).

You may also use ./ if you want to use a specific version of a program. Say there are two ps commands, one in /usr/bin, the other in /usr/ucb/bin/ps. You want to use the latter, you can type the full path, or cd to /usr/ucb/bin, then run ./ps

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LEARN ABOUT SUNOS

ld

ld(1B)						     SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands						    ld(1B)

NAME

       ld - link editor, dynamic link editor

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/ucb/ld [options]

DESCRIPTION

       /usr/ucb/ld  is	the link editor for the BSD Compatibility Package. /usr/ucb/ld is identical to /usr/ccs/bin/ld (see ld(1)) except that BSD
       libraries and routines are included before the base libraries and routines.

OPTIONS

       /usr/ucb/ld accepts the same options as /usr/ccs/bin/ld, with the following exceptions:

       -Ldir	       Add dir to the list of directories searched for libraries by /usr/ccs/bin/ld. Directories specified with  this  option  are
		       searched before /usr/ucblib and /usr/lib.

       -Y LU,dir       Change  the default directory used for finding libraries. Warning:  This option may have unexpected results, and should not
		       be used.

FILES

       /usr/lib

       /usr/lib/libx.a

       /usr/ucblib

       /usr/ucblib/libx.a

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWscpu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       ar(1), as(1), cc(1B), ld(1), lorder(1), strip(1), tsort(1), attributes(5)

SunOS 5.10							    14 Sep 1992 							    ld(1B)