Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Example
when start a Virtualenv of python. It will need to type . someenv/bin/activate. However, even if it works fine, I still a little bit confuse about how it works.
Is there anyone who can give me a explanation in more general view about . command in shell?
. is a synonym to source in bash. To sum up, it executes a script within the current shell, instead of executing it in a subshell. This means that anything changed in the environment by the script will persist in the shell after the script has ended.
Have a look at this question, which is basically the same as yours : What's the meaning of a dot before a command in shell?
