Reading commands from another file in a shell script?

Question

see i want to use source command in my shell script. Now when i type source on terminal it shows like

-bash: source: filename argument required
source: usage: source filename [arguments]

now when i use this in my shell script like this

#!/bin/sh
source

and save as test.sh

and run then get like this

./test.sh: 2: source: not found

How to solve this problem?

Source requires an argument. What do you expect it to do without one? — knittl
– knittl, Commented Aug 3, 2012 at 13:34
i know it but here problem is source command is not finding...if i give argument still it will not work.. — Jeegar Patel
– Jeegar Patel, Commented Aug 3, 2012 at 13:35
source file in bash or csh is a command that reads commands from file into the current shell (either script or interactive session). The more portable version of this is the dot command . file. This is supported on all common unix shells. — Henk Langeveld
– Henk Langeveld, Commented Aug 3, 2012 at 13:38

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-03 13:44:45Z

5

You run your script with sh, not with bash. source does not exist in plain sh, but you can use . instead, it means the same thing.

#!/bin/sh
. /path/to/other/script
function_defined_in_other_script

edited Aug 3, 2012 at 13:44

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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answered Aug 3, 2012 at 13:36

knittl

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6 Comments

Henk Langeveld Over a year ago

Indeed, use . file to make it work across different shells.

knittl Over a year ago

@HenkLangeveld: . does not work in dash (the default sh on Ubuntu). Neither is it documented in its manpage.

Henk Langeveld Over a year ago

$ . ./test_dot.sh Results in This is test_dot.sh, called from dash on my vagrant linux box. (file contains echo This is test_dot.sh, called from $0 )

knittl Over a year ago

@HenkLangeveld: my mistake. Tried with a file which did exist system wide as well … – still, I cannot find it in the manpage.

Henk Langeveld Over a year ago

It's in man dash, three paragraphs down in the Builtins section

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