comment on

If C is your "get stuff done" language, why not say it's your scripting language?

Does a shell script have to have a #! line at the start, or is this just a nice-to-have to make sure the right shell executes it?

The shebang is there so you can say:

$ ./script.sh
[download]

Instead of:

$ bash script.sh
[download]

The shebang also makes it possible for other programs to execute the script without knowing what language the program is written in. For instance, Apache/mod_cgi just needs to fork() and exec() on anything specified as a CGI. No need to check the file extention or somesuch to line it up with a specific interpreter.

It is perfectly possible to leave the shebang out. You just have know what interpreter to use.

"There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not trying to learn in the first place." -- Atrus, Myst: The Book of D'ni.

In reply to Re^2: At Last, a Useful Definition of "Scripting Language" by hardburn
in thread At Last, a Useful Definition of "Scripting Language" by hardburn

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		`&`
	<		`<`
	>		`>`
	[		`[`
	]		`]`

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.


Just another Perl shrine
	PerlMonks