UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all!

I'm a Unix noob, (just got my first os x machine, the aluminum Macbook 2.4GHz) and installed ns2 (network simulator) on it. NS2 requires you to add a path to the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH and TCL_LIBRARY variables, which I set successfully using these commands from the command prompt:

Code:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/otcl-1.13:/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/lib

export TCL_LIBRARY=/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/tcl8.4.18/library

And when I set the variabes this way NS2 runs fine in that session. I read about how its not good to set these variables in your .profile file, so I'm trying to write a script (nsinit.sh) to execute these two commands every time I'm trying to run ns.

Code:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/otcl-1.13:/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/lib"

export TCL_LIBRARY="/Users/Dorna/ns-allinone-2.33/tcl8.4.18/library"

I made my script executable using "chmod -x nsinit.sh".

And nothing happens!! I echo the variables after I run the script, and they're empty. I tried so many different variations of these commands, with or without quotes, etc, and the variables never get set.

Please help me, I'm so confused!!

Did you source the script - ie., use either the source command or the dot-space command notation?

Code:

source nsinit.sh
# or --
. nsinit.sh

THANKS!! That fixed it!! I had never heard of this before, what does it mean to source the script? I thought the chmod things was enough. So I should always call it like this?