title: Purpose of line : source ~oracle/.bash_profile in shell script
body: <p>While executing a shell script involving database connection, my script showed me an Error :sqlplus not found :   </p>
  
  <pre><code>sqlplus -s username/paswd@DB_name  &gt; /home/user/sql.out &lt;&lt; EOF
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when i included the following statement, it started to work:</p>
  
  <pre><code>source ~oracle/.bash_profile
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is the purpose of this above line ?</p>