On 2019-02-11, Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 05:26:34PM -0000, Curt wrote: >> I follow your logic. Give me everything in /etc/skel/ beginning with a dot. >> Which works. But apparently a dot is also something else. Like a directory. >> >> curty@einstein:~$ ls /etc/skel/.* >> /etc/skel/.bash_logout /etc/skel/.bashrc /etc/skel/.profile >> >> /etc/skel/.: >> >> /etc/skel/..: >> >> (etc.--the contents of /etc/ >> >> I'm not sure what it all means. > > The shell glob .* expands to everything in the current directory that > begins with a dot. Which includes "." and "..". > > "." is the current directory. ".." is the parent directory. E.g. when > you type "cd .." it moves you "up" to the parent directory. > > Asking ls to show you .* is usually a bad idea, precisely because it > expands to a list which includes . and .. and does exactly what you > just described. > > This is why the ls command has -a and -A options. > >
Thank you. That all makes perfect sense.