'\" et
.TH DOT "1P" 2017 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual"
.\"
.SH PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
.\"
.SH NAME
dot
\(em execute commands in the current environment
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
\&. \fIfile\fR
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The shell shall execute commands from the
.IR file
in the current environment.
.P
If
.IR file
does not contain a
<slash>,
the shell shall use the search path specified by
.IR PATH
to find the directory containing
.IR file .
Unlike normal command search, however, the file searched for by the
.IR 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.
.SH OPTIONS
None.
.SH OPERANDS
See the DESCRIPTION.
.SH STDIN
Not used.
.SH "INPUT FILES"
See the DESCRIPTION.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES"
See the DESCRIPTION.
.SH "ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS"
Default.
.SH STDOUT
Not used.
.SH STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
.SH "OUTPUT FILES"
None.
.SH "EXTENDED DESCRIPTION"
None.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
If no readable file was found or if the commands in the file could not
be parsed, and the shell is interactive (and therefore does not abort; see
.IR "Section 2.8.1" ", " "Consequences of Shell Errors"),
the exit status shall be non-zero. Otherwise, return the value of the
last command executed, or a zero exit status if no command is executed.
.SH "CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS"
Default.
.LP
.IR "The following sections are informative."
.SH "APPLICATION USAGE"
None.
.SH EXAMPLES
.LP
.nf
cat foobar
\fBfoo=hello bar=world\fR
\&. ./foobar
echo $foo $bar
\fBhello world\fR
.fi
.SH "RATIONALE"
Some older implementations searched the current directory for the
.IR file ,
even if the value of
.IR PATH
disallowed it. This behavior was omitted from this volume of POSIX.1\(hy2017 due to concerns
about introducing the susceptibility to trojan horses that the user
might be trying to avoid by leaving
.BR dot
out of
.IR PATH .
.P
The KornShell version of
.IR dot
takes optional arguments that are set to the positional parameters.
This is a valid extension that allows a
.IR dot
script to behave identically to a function.
.SH "FUTURE DIRECTIONS"
None.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR "Section 2.14" ", " "Special Built-In Utilities",
.IR "\fIreturn\fR\^"
.\"
.SH COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition,
Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
.PP
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear
in this page are most likely
to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to
man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .