./

[nullpointer at pobox.com (Dan Barrett)]

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On Monday 10 November 2003 17:03, eric wrote:
> hey. it's not easy teaching yourself linux.  here's one for somebody
> who's bored tonight...  what does ./ mean?

Think of it as shorthand for "the current directory."


> if i cd to /usr/sbin and then type tripwire, nothing happens, but if i
> type ./tripwire off we go.  why?


Because /usr/sbin isn't in your PATH environment variable.  Without 
qualification, the shell scans your PATH.  Once you add the ./, it looks in 
the current directory, which happens to be the right one, and executes the 
binary.
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