You are looking into a new script you received from your senior administrator. In the very first line you notice a #! followed by a file path. This indicates that:

You are looking into a new script you received from your senior administrator. In the very first line you notice a #! followed by a file path. This indicates that:
A . The file at that location was used to make the script.
B . This script provides identical functionality as the file at that location.
C . This script will self-extract into a file at that location.
D . The program at that location will be used to process the script.

View Answer

Answer: D

Explanation:

The #! followed by a file path is called a shebang or a hashbang. It is a special notation that tells the operating system which interpreter to use to execute the script. For example, if the first line of a script is #!/bin/bash, it means that the script will be run by the Bash shell, which is located at /bin/bash. Similarly, if the first line of a script is #!/usr/bin/python3, it means that the script will be run by the Python 3 interpreter, which is located at /usr/bin/python3. The shebang must be the very first line of the script, and it must start with #! without any spaces. The file path after the #! must be an absolute path, not a relative path or a symbolic link. The shebang allows the script to be executed as a standalone program, without specifying the interpreter explicitly. For example, if a script named hello.sh has a shebang of #!/bin/bash, and it has the executable permission, it can be run as

./hello.sh instead of bash hello.sh. The shebang also allows the script to be associated with a specific interpreter, regardless of the default interpreter of the system or the user. For example, if a script named hello.py has a shebang of #!/usr/bin/python3, it will always be run by Python 3, even if the system or the user has Python 2 as the default Python interpreter. The shebang is not a comment, although it looks like one. It is a special instruction that is only recognized by the operating system when the script is executed. It is ignored by the interpreter when the script is read. Therefore, the shebang does not indicate that the file at that location was used to make the script, or that the script provides identical functionality as the file at that location, or that the script will self-extract into a file at that location. The correct answer is that the program at that location will be used to process the script. You can learn more about the shebang here1 and here2.

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