Not having to prepend compiled commands with ./?
 

How can one make it so that compiled commands can be executed without having to prepend them with './'? For instance given the g++ compiled command a.out, executing with just 'a.out' instead of './a.out'.

You would have to add the directory where you built the command to your PATH variable. For example, if you are compiling in /home/SirTristan/neatstuff, then you would need to add /home/SirTristan/neatstuff to PATH. The other option is to tell g++ to output the executable to a directory that is in your PATH (and you have write permissions) using the -o switch.

Put the directory where the command resides on your PATH. You can show your PATH with:

echo $PATH

You can add a directory (for example /home/user/test) to your PATH with:

PATH=$PATH:/home/user/test
export PATH

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Steve Stites

When you prepend ./ to a command you are telling bash to look for the command in the current directory.

You could add . to your $PATH, but this is considered a poor move security-wize. There used to be quite a bit of discussion on the old linuxnewbie.org forums about the pros and cons of this practice.

Suggest : rename a.out to something else and move or copy it
to /usr/local/bin
(If you only have 1 a.out, the name a.out is OK)
Then it is in your path.

Rgds

What's so arduous about having to type two extra characters anyway? ./ there, even a lazy **** like me can do it. :)

If these are useful programs you will use again, create a bin dir in your $HOME directory and add $HOME/bin to your path.

The system profile script may even check for a $HOME/bin directory and add it to the path if it is present.
You can put handy scripts in there as well.

Good idea, thanks :)