Shell Programming and Scripting

hi,
I have shell script ( say A.sh) that launches another shell script ( say B.sh) on the server.
In shell script A.sh, if i call B.sh as

. B.sh <-- it doesnt work, err file not found
. ./B.sh <-- it doesnt work, err file not found
./B.sh <-- works

why so? BTW the file exists at the right place

the dot (period) means "in the current working directory". So ./B means "execute B which is in the current working directory". You can use it with other commands too such as find.

Code:

find . -type  f

Find in the current working directory all files.

If I'm in /home/dcslick/ and I have slick.sh in that directory, the . expands to /home/dcslick/ in the shell. ./slick.sh = /home/dcslick/slick.sh in this example. / means the root directory. As long as your file is executable and in the current working directory (the one your shell is currently in) you can type: ./ followed immediately by the file name to execute it.

thanks, bu i want to know why it doesnt work with . B.sh ?

not proper syntax... the . needs a / after it. Files starting with a . are hidden files. So .B is a legit file name. Filenames can have spaces in them too. So: [SPACE]B is a legit name too, just not an advisable one. You have to specify ./ which says "Current working directory"

What shell are you using?