On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 18:51 +0000, Tyler Smith wrote: > On 2007-12-31, michael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Thanks, probably the previous chapter ("she-bang") was of more use > > but a useful ref. However, I'm still trying to understand why it's > > not usual to have a she-bang for the .bash_profile and .bashrc files. > > That documentation reads as if it's expected - they are scripts and > > contain shell specific syntax. > > Regular shell scripts could be called from any number of places. If > you're running a bash shell, you could run a csh or zsh or python > script. Similarly any of these scripts could be called from another > process, such as from a program written in C, or Lisp, or whatever. In > any of these cases the language of the script has no relation to the > environment it is called from. All the caller knows is that they are > executable files - any details are hidden. That means the pertinent > information needs to be stored in the script itself, and that has to > happen on the first line so the proper interpreter is invoked. > > Imagine what would happen if you didn't do this. You call a script > from your terminal running bash, and that script is written in Perl. > Without the #! the terminal could either assume it's written in bash, > and choke on the syntax, or try and guess the language, which gets > hairy very quickly.
Yes, all this I understand and appreciate > > .bashrc and .bash_profile are different. They are only reasonably > invoked by a bash shell, so it is safe to assume they are written > using bash syntax. They are, after all, configuration files for bash, > so what other language would they be written in? "reasonably"?! and where is it stated they are different? surely they should have the !# at the start too it's this implicitness that upsets me! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]