Oops, it seems I sent an incomplete mail. Sorry for that.
> Why do a lot of bash scripts start with the first line as #!/bin/bash
It means that the script must be executed by the program #!/bin/bash.
> They seem to work just as well without.
Not if you were using another shell than bash, like csh or tcsh, which uses
different syntax. Try the following :
==============================================================================
bash# cat > tmpscript
#
export TOTO='hello world'
echo $TOTO
bash# chmod +x ./tmpscript
bash# tmpscript
hello world
bash# csh
csh% tmpscript
export: Command not found.
TOTO: Undefined variable.
==============================================================================
csh did not run the script right. Now, try :
==============================================================================
bash# cat > tmpscript
#!/bin/bash
export TOTO='hello world'
echo $TOTO
bash# tmpscript
hello world
bash# csh
csh% tmpscript
hello world
==============================================================================
Cheers,
Etienne
