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When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/

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  When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 13:20 +0200
    Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Peter Ludikovsky <peter@ludikovsky.name> - 2017-03-27 13:30 +0200
      Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 13:50 +0200
        Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2017-03-27 14:30 +0200
          Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-03-27 14:50 +0200
            Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 16:30 +0200
              Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-03-27 16:40 +0200
                Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 17:50 +0200
                  Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-03-27 21:40 +0200
            Chaos of confusion RESOLVED - was [Re: When specifying path to file -  confused about ./ and ~/] Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-04-03 14:50 +0200
          Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 16:00 +0200
        Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-03-27 21:30 +0200
          Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 22:00 +0200
            Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-03-27 23:20 +0200
            Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ kAt <giathnygeia@openmailbox.org> - 2017-03-28 00:10 +0200
              Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz> - 2017-03-28 00:30 +0200
              Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Mark Fletcher <mark27q1@gmail.com> - 2017-03-28 02:00 +0200
              Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-03-28 03:20 +0200
              Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-03-28 19:20 +0200
                Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-03-28 19:30 +0200
    Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2017-03-27 14:40 +0200
      Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Mark Fletcher <mark27q1@gmail.com> - 2017-03-27 15:30 +0200
        Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-03-27 17:00 +0200
        Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 17:10 +0200
      Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-03-27 16:40 +0200
        Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ Jochen Spieker <ml@well-adjusted.de> - 2017-03-27 17:10 +0200

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#179434 — When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/

Please avoid trying to briefly explain.
Please refer me to a good web page.
I *KNOW* I'm missing something fundamental.
A web page will either have links to whatever my underlying problem is.
Or it will inherently use keywords for which I can search.
Thank you.

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#179436

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

./ - the current director, usually used when running a script from it
and it not being in the search path for executables
~/ - the current users home directory

Trying to get through an interview?

Regards,
/peter

On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> Please avoid trying to briefly explain.
> Please refer me to a good web page.
> I *KNOW* I'm missing something fundamental.
> A web page will either have links to whatever my underlying problem is.
> Or it will inherently use keywords for which I can search.
> Thank you.
> 
> 

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#179438

 > On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
  *_Please refer me to a good web page._
  I *KNOW* I'm missing something fundamental.
  A web page will either have links to whatever my underlying problem is.
  Or it will inherently use keywords for which I can search.
  Thank you.


On 03/27/2017 06:20 AM, Peter Ludikovsky wrote without useful content:
> ./ - the current director, usually used when running a script from it
> and it not being in the search path for executables
> ~/ - the current users home directory
>
> Trying to get through an interview?
>
> Regards,
> /peter
>

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#179445

On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>> On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
>  *_Please refer me to a good web page._

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix1.html
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix2.html

Sections 1.4, 1.6 part 2, and 2.1 demonstrate use of '.' and '~' to
represent directory names.

To the best of my knowledge, '.' is intrinsic to the filesystem
design, whereas expansion of '~' is handled by your shell.
I hope someone else here will correct or elaborate that statement if necessary.

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#179449

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On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25:30PM +1100, David wrote:
> On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
> >> On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> >  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
> >  *_Please refer me to a good web page._

Sorry, richard: no web page, but perhaps something to start:

  ./ means "HERE"
  ~/ means "HOME"

You can move to other places with "cd" and ask where you
are currently with "pwd" or "echo $CWD", but your home
stays at "/home/richard" -- or wherever it is.

> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix1.html
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix2.html
> 
> Sections 1.4, 1.6 part 2, and 2.1 demonstrate use of '.' and '~' to
> represent directory names.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, '.' is intrinsic to the filesystem

Yes and no (see below)

> design, whereas expansion of '~' is handled by your shell.

Yes. The shell expands ~ to your current *home* directory (and it
expands ~foo to foo's home directory).

Now to the "yes and no": yes: every directory has two entries: ".",
which resolves to the directory itself, and "..", which resolves
to the directory's parent. This is the "intrinsic" part, i.e.
the "yes" part.

To the "no" part: in the shell, names of files are often resolved
using some default mechanism. If you invoke a command, then (unless
it's a shell builtin), the shell looks for this command as an
executable in one of the directories listed in the shell environment
variable PATH. Unless you give an explicit directory, as in
"foo/command", where the shell would look in directory foo (relative
to the current working directory, CWD [1]). Thus, ./command would
look in the current working directory.

> I hope someone else here will correct or elaborate that statement if necessary.

So yes, correct, but some further explanation might help in
understanding how to use it in a shell.

regards

[1] Of course, if you start your path with /, it's an absolute
   path, like /usr/local/bin/foo/command.

- -- tomás
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#179461

On 03/27/2017 07:47 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25:30PM +1100, David wrote:
>> On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>>>> On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>>  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
>>>  *_Please refer me to a good web page._
>
> Sorry, richard: no web page, but perhaps something to start:
>
>   ./ means "HERE"
>   ~/ means "HOME"

True, but <grin or groan as appropriate ;>
my learning style is often dependent on examples more than definitions.

I learned that as a freshman engineering student in Fall 1961.
Only engineers and declared math majors took a specific calculus 
sequence. Our Teaching Assistant was a first semester grad student. His 
specialization was *PURE* mathematics. Our section [one of > 20] had 20 
engineers and 2 math majors. He lectured rigorously on the theory. On 
the first of 3 course-wide exams we set some sort of record for the 
lowest class average [even the 2 math majors acing the exam didn't 
help;]. During a post-mortem, he asked for suggestions. The engineers 
replied "Give us examples!" He replied that's now to teach math, you 
need theory. We all but chanted "Give us examples!" He partially 
partially caved saying "Till the next exam. Then we'll go back to the 
right way [implication of lots of remedial homework]."
The next exam had us not at the top, but having a respectable class average.



>
> You can move to other places with "cd" and ask where you
> are currently with "pwd" or "echo $CWD", but your home
> stays at "/home/richard" -- or wherever it is.
>
>> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix1.html
>> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix2.html
>>
>> Sections 1.4, 1.6 part 2, and 2.1 demonstrate use of '.' and '~' to
>> represent directory names.
>>
>> To the best of my knowledge, '.' is intrinsic to the filesystem
>
> Yes and no (see below)
>
>> design, whereas expansion of '~' is handled by your shell.
>
> Yes. The shell expands ~ to your current *home* directory (and it
> expands ~foo to foo's home directory).
>
> Now to the "yes and no": yes: every directory has two entries: ".",
> which resolves to the directory itself, and "..", which resolves
> to the directory's parent. This is the "intrinsic" part, i.e.
> the "yes" part.
>
> To the "no" part: in the shell, names of files are often resolved
> using some default mechanism. If you invoke a command, then (unless
> it's a shell builtin), the shell looks for this command as an
> executable in one of the directories listed in the shell environment
> variable PATH. Unless you give an explicit directory, as in
> "foo/command", where the shell would look in directory foo (relative
> to the current working directory, CWD [1]). Thus, ./command would
> look in the current working directory.
>
>> I hope someone else here will correct or elaborate that statement if necessary.
>
> So yes, correct, but some further explanation might help in
> understanding how to use it in a shell.
>
> regards
>
> [1] Of course, if you start your path with /, it's an absolute
>    path, like /usr/local/bin/foo/command.
>
> - -- tomás

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#179462

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On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 09:26:58AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 03/27/2017 07:47 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> >
> >On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25:30PM +1100, David wrote:
> >>On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
> >>>>On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
> >>> *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
> >>> *_Please refer me to a good web page._
> >
> >Sorry, richard: no web page, but perhaps something to start:
> >
> >  ./ means "HERE"
> >  ~/ means "HOME"
> 
> True, but <grin or groan as appropriate ;>
> my learning style is often dependent on examples more than definitions.

[give us examples]

FWIW I studied physics. Theoretical physics. I loved math (still
do). I *always* learnt by examples. Or better even: by alternating
layers of theory and examples. To the point that I'm convinced that
maths is a craft, like pottery or carpentry. You need *practice*.
No practice without examples. But that's just me?

That said, you were so terminant that I just dared to provide
something minimal (not even a theory but just a kind of refcard,
let's call it a theory's skeleton).

If you're less terminant next time, I'll provide again examples ;-)

regards
- -- tomás
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#179473

On 03/27/2017 09:37 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 09:26:58AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> On 03/27/2017 07:47 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25:30PM +1100, David wrote:
>>>> On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>>>>>> On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>>>> *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
>>>>> *_Please refer me to a good web page._
>>>
>>> Sorry, richard: no web page, but perhaps something to start:
>>>
>>>  ./ means "HERE"
>>>  ~/ means "HOME"
>>
>> True, but <grin or groan as appropriate ;>
>> my learning style is often dependent on examples more than definitions.
>
> [give us examples]

Thought I did ;/

>
> FWIW I studied physics. Theoretical physics. I loved math (still
> do). I *always* learnt by examples. Or better even: by alternating
> layers of theory and examples. To the point that I'm convinced that
> maths is a craft, like pottery or carpentry. You need *practice*.
> No practice without examples. But that's just me?
>
> That said, you were so terminant that I just dared to provide
> something minimal (not even a theory but just a kind of refcard,
> let's call it a theory's skeleton).

Careful you're agreeing with me.
I and my classmates actually learned 1st semester calculus in 2nd 
semester physics - ie springs and pendulums.
There was Part II of my story. Second semester sophomore year all 
engineers and some math majors took a specific Differential Equations 
course. It was taught in a different format - 3 lectures and 1 
recitation each week. As the number of students required two lecturers 
and the students were equally divided, one lecture was from engineering 
and one from the math faculty. Students were randomly assigned, the 
lectures being in the same hour. The math professor was a pure 
mathematician {found out later that math grad students competed to take 
his classes}. The rumor at semester's end was that the engineering 
professors students' grade distribution was a very normal bell curve. 
The math professor's distribution was doubled humped. The engineering 
students average being ~10 points lower.


>
> If you're less terminant next time, I'll provide again examples ;-)
>
> regards
> - -- tomás
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>
>

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#179491

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On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 10:39:41AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 03/27/2017 09:37 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

[...]

> >[give us examples]
> 
> Thought I did ;/

I was just paraphrasing your paragraph, which I snipped out ;-)

> >FWIW I studied physics. Theoretical physics. I loved math (still
> >do). I *always* learnt by examples [...]
> >let's call it a theory's skeleton).
> 
> Careful you're agreeing with me.

I thought thas wat obvious :)

> [...] The rumor at semester's end
> was that the engineering professors students' grade distribution was
> a very normal bell curve. The math professor's distribution was
> doubled humped. The engineering students average being ~10 points
> lower.

I think there are good pairs of (teacher,student), and that depends
on many more factors than on whether the teacher is math/engineer.

> >If you're less terminant next time, I'll provide again examples ;-)

regards
- -- tomás
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#179733 — Chaos of confusion RESOLVED - was [Re: When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/]

On 03/27/2017 06:14 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>
> Please avoid trying to briefly explain.
> Please refer me to a good web page.
> I *KNOW* I'm missing something fundamental.
> ...
>

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 11:25:30PM +1100, David wrote:
>
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix1.html
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix2.html
>
> Sections 1.4, 1.6 part 2, and 2.1 demonstrate use of '.' and '~' to
> represent directory names.
>
> To the best of my knowledge, '.' is intrinsic to the filesystem
>

On 03/27/2017 07:47 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
>
> Yes and no (see below)
>
> [massive snip]
>
> Of course, if you start your path with /, it's an absolute
> path, like /usr/local/bin/foo/command.
>

That was the key.
*BUT* it went unrecognized until crashed full tilt into another problem.
My subject line SHOULD HAVE BEEN:
" When specifying path to file - confused about ./ and ~/ and /"
Particular examples would be the difference among
"ls ./" and "ls ~/" *AND* "ls /".

richard@march-9-Jessie:~$ cd testfolder
richard@march-9-Jessie:~/testfolder$
richard@march-9-Jessie:~/testfolder$ ls ~/
Documents	metime         Public         Videos
Downloads       Music          t1             wordpress_install
apr-3A          new file       Templates

richard@march-9-Jessie:~/testfolder$ ls ./
test-script-0   test-script-1

richard@march-9-Jessie:~/testfolder$ ls /
bin             dev            home           lib
media           boot           etc            initrd.img
richard@march-9-Jessie:~/testfolder$

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#179456

On 03/27/2017 07:25 AM, David wrote:
> On 27 March 2017 at 22:39, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
>>> On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*
>>  *_Please refer me to a good web page._
>
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix1.html
> http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unix2.html
>
> Sections 1.4, 1.6 part 2, and 2.1 demonstrate use of '.' and '~' to
> represent directory names.
>
> To the best of my knowledge, '.' is intrinsic to the filesystem
> design, whereas expansion of '~' is handled by your shell.
> I hope someone else here will correct or elaborate that statement if necessary.
>
>

Thank you, the first reference was the key.
I also is a useful illustration of why my original post said:
"
     Please avoid trying to briefly explain.
     Please refer me to a good web page.
"
The author of that page made only *3* assumptions:
    1. that the reader was interested.
    2. that the reader's literacy level was adequate.
    3. that the author knew he knew *nothing* about the reader's
       background.

It wasn't so much the author's descriptions, but his use of a 
progressive series of illustrative examples.

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#179490

On Mon 27 Mar 2017 at 06:39:49 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:

> > On 03/27/2017 01:14 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>  *Please avoid trying to briefly explain.*

Its hard - but we will try.

>  *_Please refer me to a good web page._

Deconstruction: Please do my searching for me.

>  I *KNOW* I'm missing something fundamental.

Like good manners and an appreciation that people give their time to
answer here in an endeavour to help?

>  A web page will either have links to whatever my underlying problem is.
>  Or it will inherently use keywords for which I can search.
>  Thank you.

Not only do you want a web page but you want one with particular
characteristics. That's a tall order but we will try. Any particular
colours it has to be in?
 
> On 03/27/2017 06:20 AM, Peter Ludikovsky wrote without useful content:

He probably thought he was writing for a reasonably experienced user. Or
one who thinks, mulls things over for more than a minute and is capable
of exploring instead of reacting.

> >./ - the current director, usually used when running a script from it
> >and it not being in the search path for executables
> >~/ - the current users home directory
> >
> >Trying to get through an interview?
> >
> >Regards,
> >/peter

A succinct and accurate response. A user who had two brain cells and a
desire to learn could have used this as jumping off point.

-- 
Brian.

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#179494

On 03/27/2017 02:25 PM, Brian wrote:
>
> Not only do you want a web page but you want one with particular
> characteristics. That's a tall order but we will try. Any particular
> colours it has to be in?
>

SEE https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2017/03/msg01167.html

Where I said "I was not aware that search engines accepted 
non-alphanumeric strings as legitimate search terms. Previous experience 
had suggested otherwise.

Thank you, this old dog has learned a new trick.

P.S. Fourth hit of https://www.google.com/search?q=~/+tutorial was 
David's first link ;/
"

!

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#179495

On Mon 27 Mar 2017 at 14:51:08 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:

> On 03/27/2017 02:25 PM, Brian wrote:
> >
> >Not only do you want a web page but you want one with particular
> >characteristics. That's a tall order but we will try. Any particular
> >colours it has to be in?
> >
> 
> SEE https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2017/03/msg01167.html
> 
> Where I said "I was not aware that search engines accepted non-alphanumeric
> strings as legitimate search terms. Previous experience had suggested
> otherwise.
> 
> Thank you, this old dog has learned a new trick.
> 
> P.S. Fourth hit of https://www.google.com/search?q=~/+tutorial was David's
> first link ;/
> "

Debian caters for old dogs and insolent puppies. On the other hand, we
would rather they are house-trained and didn't savage the visitors here.

-- 
Brian.

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#179500

Richard Owlett:
> 
> SEE https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2017/03/msg01167.html
> 
> Where I said "I was not aware that search engines accepted
> non-alphanumeric strings as legitimate search terms. Previous experience
> had suggested otherwise.
> 
> Thank you, this old dog has learned a new trick.
> 
> P.S. Fourth hit of https://www.google.com/search?q=~/+tutorial was
> David's first link ;/

I have an example where this might be useful or then I am not
understanding the difference.

Let's say you have an executable package in the system and let's call it
pkgX
If you type pkgX in any prompt then /usr/bin/pkgX will be executed
But let's say you want to download and run a variation of this package,
edit its source and modify it, or just want to run separately a
standalone package in /xyz/packageX/pkgX
If you $cd /xyz/packageX and then $ ./pkgX the standalone would run,
right?  While pkgX will run the /usr/bin/pkgX
Alternatively in creating a local web-page set the ./index.html as the
site's root directory can easily be implemented in domain.net/index.html
and all links ./****.html will work on the remote site.

PS  off-topic rant
I just updated and a package named busybox came up.  Since I didn't know
what it was I went into the page and its most recent revision of 1/2017
seemed to be 3 years ahead of the testing/unstable version that we just
updated now!  And this is very basic common stuff like cp and fdisk
......  How conservative is our system?  Wowww!

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#179501

On 28/03/17 10:48, kAt wrote:
> PS  off-topic rant
> I just updated and a package named busybox came up.  Since I didn't know
> what it was I went into the page and its most recent revision of 1/2017
> seemed to be 3 years ahead of the testing/unstable version that we just
> updated now!  And this is very basic common stuff like cp and fdisk
> ......  How conservative is our system?  Wowww!
>

busybox is a suite of tiny cut-down programs packed into a single 
executable to save space. Most Debian installations get their cp from 
coreutils and their fdisk from util-linux.

Kind regards,

-- 
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <http://transient.nz/>
New Zealand

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#179504

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 09:48:00PM +0000, kAt wrote:
> 
> PS  off-topic rant
> I just updated and a package named busybox came up.  Since I didn't know
> what it was I went into the page and its most recent revision of 1/2017
> seemed to be 3 years ahead of the testing/unstable version that we just
> updated now!  And this is very basic common stuff like cp and fdisk
> ......  How conservative is our system?  Wowww!
> 
I think that has less to do with conservatism and more to do with busy, 
unpaid maintainers doing what they can when they can, and probably 
getting narked off with it after a while especially if there is no 
evidence of appreciation from the community.

(I don't know any specifics of the busybox package, but what I describe 
wouldn't be atypical)

Mark

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#179505

On Mon 27 Mar 2017 at 21:48:00 (+0000), kAt wrote:
> PS  off-topic rant
> I just updated and a package named busybox came up.  Since I didn't know
> what it was I went into the page and its most recent revision of 1/2017
> seemed to be 3 years ahead of the testing/unstable version that we just
> updated now!  And this is very basic common stuff like cp and fdisk
> ......  How conservative is our system?  Wowww!

Type the following:

$ mkdir /tmp/foo
$ cd /tmp/foo
$ zcat /initrd.img | cpio --extract --no-absolute-filenames
$ ls -i bin sbin | sort -nr | more

and you will see that the overwhelming majority of commands, over
180 of them, are all in the one busybox binary of a little over ½MB.
Were you to run a shell in the debian-installer (Alt-F2), you'd see
that all those commands are much less well-endowed than the versions
you know and love.

Cheers,
David.

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#179537

kAt wrote:
...
> I have an example where this might be useful or then I am not
> understanding the difference.
>
> Let's say you have an executable package in the system and let's call it
> pkgX
> If you type pkgX in any prompt then /usr/bin/pkgX will be executed

  maybe, maybe not (depends upon path).

  if you don't know where the executable is coming
from you can use the command:

$ which <program_name>

  note: some executables are in /usr/bin, some are
in /bin or /sbin...

  which directories are used/searched will depend upon
the path, perhaps the shell you are using and
of course which user you are.


> But let's say you want to download and run a variation of this package,
> edit its source and modify it, or just want to run separately a
> standalone package in /xyz/packageX/pkgX
> If you $cd /xyz/packageX and then $ ./pkgX the standalone would run,
> right?  While pkgX will run the /usr/bin/pkgX

  see above...


  songbird

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#179541

On Tue 28 Mar 2017 at 13:09:57 -0400, songbird wrote:

> kAt wrote:
> ...
> > I have an example where this might be useful or then I am not
> > understanding the difference.
> >
> > Let's say you have an executable package in the system and let's call it
> > pkgX
> > If you type pkgX in any prompt then /usr/bin/pkgX will be executed
> 
>   maybe, maybe not (depends upon path).

/usr/local/bin precedes /usr/bin in the default value of $PATH
Debian gives the user.

-- 
Brian.

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