.dotfiles

Dotfiles (files that live in your home directory that start with a .) are hidden preference files that allow you to change your shell environment and settings for different unix programs. You can see these files by passing the -a flag to the ls command.

When you want to make changes to your environment that take effect every time you log in just add them to your .bash_profile. Careful though! If you screw this file’s syntax up you may break your $PATH making it difficult to edit the file to fix the problem.