the `source` command and my $PATH

jayeola · 12-14-2005, 05:06 PM

Say I've got a script called blah.sh. Blah.sh has a line:-
source foo.sh && foo.sh
where foo.sh is another script. The whole idea is to have small re-usable scripts and foo.sh is one of them. When I run blah.sh as user root, foo.sh is sourced and run but the shell tells me
./blah.sh: line 23: foo.sh: command not found
even though foo.sh has been run.

Is this reflected the $PATH of the regular user and that of root? (I'm sure that it's related to my $PATH, but I'm not sure how to rectify this - yet)

sirclif · 12-14-2005, 05:27 PM

i think it probably is. the problem comes from the fact that './' is not the $PATH variable by default. my guess is that if you change the line to

source foo.sh && foo.sh

it will work. this is of course assuming the script is executable.

chmod +x foo.sh

try that.

bulliver · 12-14-2005, 05:34 PM

sirclif:

I think you mean:

Code:

source foo.sh && ./foo.sh

but the point is moot. Sourcing the file or simply executing it do exactly the same thing. You are running your script twice. Why?

sirclif · 12-14-2005, 05:42 PM

haha, yes, that is what i meant.

however, they do not do exactly the same thing. running the script directly, like ./foo.sh, will run it in a subshell. That is probably a detail that doens't make much difference, it never has in anything ive done, but i think it can if the environment variables are important in your script. i was wondering the same thing myself about running it twice...

bulliver · 12-14-2005, 05:50 PM

Quote:

however, they do not do exactly the same thing. running the script directly, like ./foo.sh, will run it in a subshell. That is probably a detail that doens't make much difference, it never has in anything ive done, but i think it can if the environment variables are important in your script. i was wondering the same thing myself about running it twice...

Your right, it does make shell variables active in the current scope, however, it still doesn't make sense to me in the OP's context. If you have sourced the script, then any executable code has been run. If the executable code depends on the shell variables declared, just declare them before the commands, and it just needs to be sourced, right? Why the source then the strait execution?

Maybe I just don't get it...

jayeola · 12-14-2005, 06:33 PM

I had no idea that `source blah.sh` and `blah.sh` did the same thing. I thought that source blah would (kind of), load a script anywhere in my $PATH and then I'd have to run it with the name of the script....

edited to add:- thanks guys. I chaged the line to `source blah.sh`, the script was executed with no complaints and everything's lovely

chrism01 · 12-14-2005, 10:45 PM

Actually, 'source' or short form '. ' ie dot-space includes the contents of the named file directly into the calling file ie it's at the same shell level.
Using ./file.sh will create a sub-shell, so only exported vars from the parent are visible, and any vars created in the subshell cease to exist as soon as it terminates, so you can't use them in the parent shell.
HTH