File execution question

[Socrates440]

Big thanks to everybody who has helped me out so far. I have a file execution question. I wrote a shell script that is one step above a "hello world!" program called firstshell.sh. Anyways, I went to the directory where firstshell.sh was with the cd command and I tried running it by typing in /firstshell.sh. My terminal returned:

@localhost Begshell]$ /firstshell.sh
bash: /firstshell.sh: No such file or directory

I typed in ls -l to make sure the file was there and my terminal confirmed that firstshell.sh was in there.

I then tried loading firstshell using @localhost Begshell]$ /home/username/Documents/Begshell/firstshell.sh and it worked.

My question is ,why couldn't I load it from the directory it was in by typing /begshell.sh?

Thanks!

[marriedto51]

The '/' character on the front of the path refers to the root of the filesystem.

To refer to the current directory, use a '.', as in:

$ ./firstshell.sh

[sonoran]

As marriedto51 said, you need a . before the / to indicate the current directory:
http://rute.2038bug.com/node7.html.g...00000000000000

Some people add the . to their $PATH, so bash always searches the current directory, but others say that is a security risk:
http://rute.2038bug.com/node7.html.g...00000000000000

Rute is a bit old, but a valuable resource:
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz