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From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
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Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 14:49:11 -0600 (CST)
To: Peter <peterk@americanisp.net>
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Peter <peterk@americanisp.net> types:
> > > You can add "." to your path by changing your shell rc file to
> > > include the line PATH=$PATH:.
> just add $PWD to your path so you don't have to type ./command everytime,
> I'm not sure how adding a . to your path works, is that the same as $PWD ?

"." is another name for the current directory. $PWD is a variable that
expands to the path of the current directory when it is evaluated. So
in your path, "." always looks in the shells current directory when
you issue a command. "$PWD" always looks in what the shells current
directory was when you added it to PATH.

That's still not very clear, so here's an example:

/tmp/a1$ PATH=$PATH:$PWD        |/tmp/a1$ PATH=$PATH:.
/tmp/a1$ ls                     |/tmp/a1$ ls
foo                             |foo
/tmp/a1$ foo                    |/tmp/a1$ foo
<foo runs>                      |<foo runs>
/tmp/a1$ cd /tmp/a2             |/tmp/a1$ cd /tmp/a2
/tmp/a2$ ls                     |/tmp/a2$ ls
bar                             |bar
/tmp/a2$ foo                    |/tmp/a2$ foo
<foo runs>                      |foo: Command not found.
/tmp/a2$ bar                    |/tmp/a2$ bar
bar: Command not found.         |<bar runs>

The critical thing is the last bit: not which directory the found
vs. not found commands are in.

Final note, "." is considered to be a security problem. If you're
going to add it, make sure it's the *last* thing in your path. That
minimizes those problems.

	<mike


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