A typical example would be a user looking to inspect their home directory's configuration:

If the author meant "list files with a dot in the name", they’d use ls *.* or ls file.* . So ls filedot is oddly specific – it suggests filedot is a or literal filename .

This will list the contents of the file/directory named filedot in the current folder.

: Scripts that run every time you open a new terminal session.