Strange bash message when source-ing file

Question

ql_get_latest(){
  . "$BASH_SOURCE";
}
export -f ql_get_latest;

when I run bash, I drop into a shell:

and then when I run ql_get_latest I get:

bash: environment: No such file or directory

anybody know what that's about?

Answer 1

BASH_SOURCE (or specifically, the element at index 0 of that array) is the name of the file where a function definition occurs. Since your shell inherits ql_get_latest from its parent, the name of the "source file" is set to environment. You can see this (and another special case) if you simply echo the value of the variable from the function.

$ foo () { echo "$BASH_SOURCE"; }
$ foo
main
$ export -f foo
$ bash
$ foo
environment

In your case, you are attempting to source the file named environment, which doesn't exist. (And if it did, it wouldn't necessarily be related to ql_get_latest in any way.)