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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

I don't know enough of the matter to have an informed view, but I think it's worth noting that there is precedent for this sort of thing. Take from one of my Python scripts:

  #!/usr/bin/env python

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29

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I would add that this technically is a (ba)sh script, not a Python script.

On *nix systems, the #! is parsed by the kernel as a magic number. sh/bash are not involved.

Thanks, didn't know!

No, you can use any program to launch executable scripts that start with #!. The kernel sees that magic number at the beginning of the file, tries to read a program path and arguments, adds the script as the last arg and executes the whole thing.

The various shells are just a subset of the possible programs used.

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