How to run `source` with `docker exec`?

linux bash docker

21,584

Source is not an executable (source is a bash shell built-in command that executes the content of the file passed as argument)

You should run source like this:

docker run --rm -ti _image_name_ bash -c 'source FILE'

21,584

k0pernikus

I am Philipp Kretzschmar, a backend developer from Hamburg working at Demvsystem. You can find me on github. Or twitter. My main weapons of choice are: php TypeScript (I don't want to write plain JavaScript anymore) and nodejs I play around with: Java python rust I used to write some scala, but for now I don't want to go there anymore. I feel most comfortable on a unix-like system featuring a powerful bash. (This excludes MacOS.) I love to code within JetBrains's flavored IDEs, e.g. IntelliJ, PhpStorm, WebStorm and using the IdeaVim plugin and having a docker-compose stack to develop on.

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

k0pernikus almost 2 years
I wanted to source a file in a docker container running Ubuntu without going inside the container.

I used to:
```
docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID bash
source FILE
```
Now I wanted to do:
```
docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID source FILE
```
and was surprised that the error pops up:
```
exec: "source": executable file not found in $PATH
```
True enough I realized that source does not seem to be your standard command, as I cannot locate it via which source. ls behaves nicely.

What kind of thing is this source command anyway, and how to execute it via docker exec -it?
verboze over 6 years

ah! thank you! I forgot, docker is not executing commands with bash, but instead with sh.