punctuation

#! rule
At its lowest level, the Unix kernel executes programs with the exec(2) system call. Typically the file to execute is one of two kinds:
- a binary executable file
- a text script file

In the case of a textual script file, if the first two characters of the file are the characters # and then !, the shell program that's used to interpret the file is taken from the rest of that line. (If not, the file is thrown at the default shell for that user. Since shell languages differ syntactically, this is to be avoided.)

Interpreters that are not considered shells can also be used if that script is written in the corresponding language.

Here are some typical examples you might find at the top of a script:
#!/bin/sh       # run with borne shell
#!/bin/csh       # run with C shell
#!/usr/bin/perl       # run a perl program
#!/usr/bin/perl -w       # run a perl program, with warnings turned on
#!/bin/bash       # run specifically with Bash shell

Pronounciation: this rule is usually pronounced The she-bang rule.

.DS_Store
The .DS_Store file that is found in many directories is installed by the Mac OS Finder. It stores per-directory settings, mostly affecting the way the directory appears in the Finder, as in the View Options box.

Outside of Mac OS, the file is ignored.


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