Filename with dot in front












-1















If there is a file and the filename starts with a dot, does that mean you created the file and you are hiding stuff in it, or can the files get created on their own without you creating the filename?






filenames







share|improve this question









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  • 3





    It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago











  • WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

    – roaima
    5 hours ago






  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

    – Olorin
    1 hour ago
















-1















If there is a file and the filename starts with a dot, does that mean you created the file and you are hiding stuff in it, or can the files get created on their own without you creating the filename?






filenames







share|improve this question









New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
















  • 3





    It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago











  • WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

    – roaima
    5 hours ago






  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

    – Olorin
    1 hour ago














-1












-1








-1








If there is a file and the filename starts with a dot, does that mean you created the file and you are hiding stuff in it, or can the files get created on their own without you creating the filename?






filenames







share|improve this question









New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.












If there is a file and the filename starts with a dot, does that mean you created the file and you are hiding stuff in it, or can the files get created on their own without you creating the filename?






filenames




filenames






share|improve this question









New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.











share|improve this question









New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 25 mins ago









RonJohn

510315




510315






New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.









asked 20 hours ago









Regina SaucedoRegina Saucedo

121




121




New contributor




Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.





New contributor





Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.






Regina Saucedo is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.








  • 3





    It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago











  • WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

    – roaima
    5 hours ago






  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

    – Olorin
    1 hour ago














  • 3





    It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago











  • WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

    – roaima
    5 hours ago






  • 1





    Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

    – Olorin
    1 hour ago








3




3





It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

– Weijun Zhou
19 hours ago





It means the file is hidden. Period. You may create such a file, or it can be generated by the system. There are many hidden files in your home folder storing your configurations. If you use bash, one important file among those is .bashrc.

– Weijun Zhou
19 hours ago













WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

– roaima
5 hours ago





WeijunZhou, "It means the file is hidden. Period." I'm afraid that's just wrong. The default position of ls, most GUI file managers, and shell globs is to ignore such files, but that is all. Nothing else differentiates or even cares.

– roaima
5 hours ago




1




1





Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

– Olorin
1 hour ago





Possible duplicate of What does the dot mean

– Olorin
1 hour ago










1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















6














The only thing "special" about a file with a leading dot in its name, such as .myfile, is that it will not show up in the output of ls by default. It will also not be matched by a file name globbing pattern that does not explicitly match filenames starting with a dot.



$ touch .myfile    # this creates an empty hidden file

$ ls               # this will output nothing

$ echo *           # this will echo a *

*


These files are usually called "hidden", although they are only hidden from ls and filename globbing patterns, and not hidden in the sense of "being secret" or being totally undetectable, or being unreadable by others (it depends on the file's permission and the permission of its parent folder(s)).



Anyone can create hidden files, it's just a matter of putting a dot at the start of the name. The fact that a file is hidden says nothing about how it was created (explicitly by a user, or by running some program).



Configuration files in user's home directories (and elsewhere) are often hidden in this way so that they don't clutter the output of ls.



To view all files in a directory, including hidden files, use the -a or -A option with ls (using -A will not show the . and .. names that are present in any Unix directory).



$ ls -a

.       ..      .myfile






$ ls -A

.myfile


In the bash shell, * and other shell globbing patterns will not match hidden names. To get them to do that, enable the dotglob shell option with shopt -s dotglob.



$ echo *

*






$ shopt -s dotglob

$ echo *            # the * now matches a filename, so it is replaced by it

.myfile





share|improve this answer


























  • Great expansion on my comment. +1.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago











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1 Answer
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active

oldest

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1 Answer
1






active

oldest

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active

oldest

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oldest

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6














The only thing "special" about a file with a leading dot in its name, such as .myfile, is that it will not show up in the output of ls by default. It will also not be matched by a file name globbing pattern that does not explicitly match filenames starting with a dot.



$ touch .myfile    # this creates an empty hidden file

$ ls               # this will output nothing

$ echo *           # this will echo a *

*


These files are usually called "hidden", although they are only hidden from ls and filename globbing patterns, and not hidden in the sense of "being secret" or being totally undetectable, or being unreadable by others (it depends on the file's permission and the permission of its parent folder(s)).



Anyone can create hidden files, it's just a matter of putting a dot at the start of the name. The fact that a file is hidden says nothing about how it was created (explicitly by a user, or by running some program).



Configuration files in user's home directories (and elsewhere) are often hidden in this way so that they don't clutter the output of ls.



To view all files in a directory, including hidden files, use the -a or -A option with ls (using -A will not show the . and .. names that are present in any Unix directory).



$ ls -a

.       ..      .myfile






$ ls -A

.myfile


In the bash shell, * and other shell globbing patterns will not match hidden names. To get them to do that, enable the dotglob shell option with shopt -s dotglob.



$ echo *

*






$ shopt -s dotglob

$ echo *            # the * now matches a filename, so it is replaced by it

.myfile





share|improve this answer


























  • Great expansion on my comment. +1.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago
















6














The only thing "special" about a file with a leading dot in its name, such as .myfile, is that it will not show up in the output of ls by default. It will also not be matched by a file name globbing pattern that does not explicitly match filenames starting with a dot.



$ touch .myfile    # this creates an empty hidden file

$ ls               # this will output nothing

$ echo *           # this will echo a *

*


These files are usually called "hidden", although they are only hidden from ls and filename globbing patterns, and not hidden in the sense of "being secret" or being totally undetectable, or being unreadable by others (it depends on the file's permission and the permission of its parent folder(s)).



Anyone can create hidden files, it's just a matter of putting a dot at the start of the name. The fact that a file is hidden says nothing about how it was created (explicitly by a user, or by running some program).



Configuration files in user's home directories (and elsewhere) are often hidden in this way so that they don't clutter the output of ls.



To view all files in a directory, including hidden files, use the -a or -A option with ls (using -A will not show the . and .. names that are present in any Unix directory).



$ ls -a

.       ..      .myfile






$ ls -A

.myfile


In the bash shell, * and other shell globbing patterns will not match hidden names. To get them to do that, enable the dotglob shell option with shopt -s dotglob.



$ echo *

*






$ shopt -s dotglob

$ echo *            # the * now matches a filename, so it is replaced by it

.myfile





share|improve this answer


























  • Great expansion on my comment. +1.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago














6












6








6







The only thing "special" about a file with a leading dot in its name, such as .myfile, is that it will not show up in the output of ls by default. It will also not be matched by a file name globbing pattern that does not explicitly match filenames starting with a dot.



$ touch .myfile    # this creates an empty hidden file

$ ls               # this will output nothing

$ echo *           # this will echo a *

*


These files are usually called "hidden", although they are only hidden from ls and filename globbing patterns, and not hidden in the sense of "being secret" or being totally undetectable, or being unreadable by others (it depends on the file's permission and the permission of its parent folder(s)).



Anyone can create hidden files, it's just a matter of putting a dot at the start of the name. The fact that a file is hidden says nothing about how it was created (explicitly by a user, or by running some program).



Configuration files in user's home directories (and elsewhere) are often hidden in this way so that they don't clutter the output of ls.



To view all files in a directory, including hidden files, use the -a or -A option with ls (using -A will not show the . and .. names that are present in any Unix directory).



$ ls -a

.       ..      .myfile






$ ls -A

.myfile


In the bash shell, * and other shell globbing patterns will not match hidden names. To get them to do that, enable the dotglob shell option with shopt -s dotglob.



$ echo *

*






$ shopt -s dotglob

$ echo *            # the * now matches a filename, so it is replaced by it

.myfile





share|improve this answer















The only thing "special" about a file with a leading dot in its name, such as .myfile, is that it will not show up in the output of ls by default. It will also not be matched by a file name globbing pattern that does not explicitly match filenames starting with a dot.



$ touch .myfile    # this creates an empty hidden file

$ ls               # this will output nothing

$ echo *           # this will echo a *

*


These files are usually called "hidden", although they are only hidden from ls and filename globbing patterns, and not hidden in the sense of "being secret" or being totally undetectable, or being unreadable by others (it depends on the file's permission and the permission of its parent folder(s)).



Anyone can create hidden files, it's just a matter of putting a dot at the start of the name. The fact that a file is hidden says nothing about how it was created (explicitly by a user, or by running some program).



Configuration files in user's home directories (and elsewhere) are often hidden in this way so that they don't clutter the output of ls.



To view all files in a directory, including hidden files, use the -a or -A option with ls (using -A will not show the . and .. names that are present in any Unix directory).



$ ls -a

.       ..      .myfile






$ ls -A

.myfile


In the bash shell, * and other shell globbing patterns will not match hidden names. To get them to do that, enable the dotglob shell option with shopt -s dotglob.



$ echo *

*






$ shopt -s dotglob

$ echo *            # the * now matches a filename, so it is replaced by it

.myfile






share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 6 hours ago

























answered 19 hours ago









KusalanandaKusalananda

135k17255422




135k17255422













  • Great expansion on my comment. +1.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago



















  • Great expansion on my comment. +1.

    – Weijun Zhou
    19 hours ago

















Great expansion on my comment. +1.

– Weijun Zhou
19 hours ago





Great expansion on my comment. +1.

– Weijun Zhou
19 hours ago










Regina Saucedo is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.










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