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Possible Duplicate:
Different ways to execute a shell script

What are the specific differences between the commands listed below? 

./<scriptname>
. <scriptname>
bash <scriptname>

Can anyone explain the differences in simple words, please?

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marked as duplicate by jasonwryan, manatwork, Shawn J. Goff, Caleb, Renan Dec 6 '12 at 11:29

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the commands are 1 ./ scriptname 2 . scriptname 3 bash scriptname –  chayanupadhyay Dec 6 '12 at 6:17

1 Answer 1

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./<scriptname> executes <scriptname> in a child process and waits for it to exit.

. <scriptname> executes <scriptname> in the same process; the reasons this is used are usually to allow <scriptname> to modify the environment, and to perform additional actions without the resource cost of spawning a new process.

bash <scriptname> tells bash to run <scriptname>. If <scriptname> has a shebang with the path to bash (#!/bin/bash) at the top, it will have the same effect as just executing <scriptname>. If <scriptname> points to another interpreter (#!/bin/sh), then <scriptname> would normally be interpreted by that program, but you are overriding that by asking bash to interpret it.

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thank you Shawn J. Goff... –  chayanupadhyay Dec 6 '12 at 6:41

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