If I understand your original question correctly, you want to know what
"execute" actually means. To execute a file is to load it into the
computer's memory and execute the instructions contained in the file. The
instructions may be high level abstact instructions such as you might find
in a shell script (i.e. the instructions involve running other programs and
shell-specific meta-commands), or they may be hardware-specific machine
instructions, which the CPU picks up from memory and processes in its own
internal registers. The operating system determines which type of executable
the file is by examining its contents. If you make a file executable that
doesn't contain valid instructions of some type, and try to execute it, you
will see an error message. I think the execute bit on a directory influences
whether you can execute files contained in that directory.
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Phil Mattison
Ohmikron Corp.
480-722-9595
602-820-9452 Mobile