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7. Command Execution

If a command name contains no slashes, the shell attempts to locate it. If there exists a shell function by that name, the function is invoked as described in 8. Functions. If there exists a shell builtin by that name, the builtin is invoked.

Otherwise, the shell searches each element of $path for a directory containing an executable file by that name. If the search is unsuccessful, the shell prints an error message and returns a nonzero exit status.

If execution fails because the file is not in executable format, and the file is not a directory, it is assumed to be a shell script. /bin/sh is spawned to execute it. If the program is a file beginning with `#!', the remainder of the first line specifies an interpreter for the program. The shell will execute the specified interpreter on operating systems that do not handle this executable format in the kernel.

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This document was generated by Peter Stephenson on August, 9 2002 using texi2html