The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6
IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition
Copyright © 2001-2004 The IEEE and The Open Group, All Rights reserved.

#### NAME

> dot - execute commands in the current environment

#### SYNOPSIS

> ``.` file`

#### DESCRIPTION

> The shell shall execute commands from the file in the current environment.

> If file does not contain a slash, the shell shall use the search path specified by PATH to find the directory containing file. Unlike normal command search, however, the file searched for by the dot utility need not be executable. If no readable file is found, a non-interactive shell shall abort; an interactive shell shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, but this condition shall not be considered a syntax error.

#### OPTIONS

> None.

#### OPERANDS

> See the DESCRIPTION.

#### STDIN

> Not used.

#### INPUT FILES

> See the DESCRIPTION.

#### ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

> See the DESCRIPTION.

#### ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

> Default.

#### STDOUT

> Not used.

#### STDERR

> The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

#### OUTPUT FILES

> None.

#### EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

> None.

#### EXIT STATUS

> Returns the value of the last command executed, or a zero exit status if no command is executed.

#### CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

> Default.

The following sections are informative.

#### APPLICATION USAGE

> None.

#### EXAMPLES

>     cat foobar
>     foo=hello bar=world. foobar
>     echo $foo $bar
>     hello world

#### RATIONALE

> Some older implementations searched the current directory for the file, even if the value of PATH disallowed it. This behavior was omitted from this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 due to concerns about introducing the susceptibility to trojan horses that the user might be trying to avoid by leaving dot out of PATH .

> The KornShell version of dot takes optional arguments that are set to the positional parameters. This is a valid extension that allows a dot script to behave identically to a function.

#### FUTURE DIRECTIONS

> None.

#### SEE ALSO

> Special Built-In Utilities

#### CHANGE HISTORY

#### Issue 6

> IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( Utility Description Defaults ). No change in behavior is intended.

End of informative text.

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