Question

#!/bin/bash
#
. ~/some_env database_name

The code looks just like the above, and every time I try to run it in bash I get an error that the file or directory doesn’t exist. If I make the directory it complains that I am using a directory. If I make a file, it complains that “filename is not a function”.

What does this line of code do?
It’s very hard to figure out what the line does because the search string is so short.

Also, I am very new to bash.

Answer 1

. is shorthand for source, so this command just executes the contents of ~/some_env with parameter database_name. Note that source executes the contents of the named file within the current shell context (i.e. not in a sub-shell) and it does not matter if the named file is not executable. If you don’t have a file named some_env in your home directory or a file named database_name in your current working directory then you will get an error message.