Carl, Check the setting of your PATH variable (echo $PATH). I suspect that your current working directory (.) is not part of the search path. The POSIX shell will only search the directories listed in your PATH for executable programs. If the directory containing the program isn't on your PATH, then you must specify it explicitly as part of the script name, in either absolute (/SYS/CARL/foo) or relative (./foo) format. There is supposed to be some security issue related to having the current directory part of the PATH, and I can't offhand recall what the nature of the problem is. I find the inconvenience of having to always specify the path far outweighs whatever the bad thing is with . in the path. Mike Carl McNamee ([log in to unmask]) wrote: : Pardon me, my posix ignorance it showing! : I am curious about something that I have been running into in the posix : shell. Why do I have to qualify the name of a script to be run with "./"? : If I have the script "test" in the directory "/SYS/CARL/" and I am in the : CARL directory I have to run the test script by typing "./test". Why can't : I just type "test" and have it run? : Carl McNamee : Systems Administrator : Billing Concepts -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Yawn Hewlett-Packard email [log in to unmask] Commercial Systems Division Voice (408) 447-4367 19447 Pruneridge Ave M/S 47UA Fax (408) 447-4441 Cupertino, CA 95014 -----------------------------------------------------------------