Apple - Meaning of "./" in Mac terminal
./
is part of the path to a directory/file.
If used as part of a parameter to a command
rm image.png
andrm ./image.png
are exactly the same and identify a file in the current directoryrm *./image.png
is a pattern which looks for files namedimage.png
in all subdirectories of the current directory which end with a dot
The key use for ./
usually is to call a script/executable in the current directory. When you execute a command without specifiying it's directory (e.g. cp
instead of /bin/cp
), the shell searches for this in all directories listed in the $PATH
variable. The current directory is usually not part of that variable (for security reasons) so you can use ./command-name
to tell the shell to look for the command in the current directory.