About Linux FAQ

Browse More FAQs:

Advertisements

Explain Linux / UNIX dot-files

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: December 15, 2007]

Q. Can you tell me more about dot-files that shell and many UNIX command reads?

A. A dot file is nothing but a configuration file usually stored in users home directory. Dot files are used to configure the settings for many UNIX / Linux programs such as:
=> Bash / csh / ksh shell
=> Vi / Vim and other text editor
=> And many other applications

Usually UNIX like operating system is configured with hundreds of file located at /etc/ or /usr/local/etc or other special directories. Each application has a unique format. User can override many application defaults by creating their own configuration file in home directory. To hide configuration file from normal listing of the home directory, the name of the config file / directory prefixed with a dot (period). Thus, you got name dot file.

You can list dot files using ls command:
$ ls -a
$ ls -ld .*
$ ls -a | grep '^\.'

Output:

.
..
.adobe
.automatix
.azureus
.bash_history
.bmp
.cache
.config
.DCOPserver_vivek-desktop__0
.DCOPserver_vivek-desktop_:0
.dmrc
.esd_auth
.fontconfig
.fullcircle
.....
......
...
.tvtime
.update-manager-core
.update-notifier
.viminfo
.vimrc
.vlc
.w3m
.Xauthority
.xine
.xsession-errors

You can edit or update all dot files with standard text editor. You can also browse other users configuration file online here.

Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter or RSS feed to get all updates. You can Email this page to a friend.

Related Other Helpful FAQs:

Discussion on This FAQ

  1. Robert de Bock Says:

    Good to explain such common things, but your command (using ls and grep) could be simplified:

    ls -ld .*

    That should also work.

  2. vivek Says:

    Robert,

    Thanks for simplified version

    I appreciate your comment.

Leave a Reply

We encourage your comments, and suggestions. But please stay on topic, be polite, and avoid spam. Thank you very much for stopping by our site!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Click to hear an audio file of the anti-spam word

Tags: , , , , , ,

Copyright © 2006-2008 nixCraft. All rights reserved - TOS/Disclaimer - Privacy policy - Sitemap - Powered by Open source software.