SHELL 22.1
The Hierarchy of oa_pref File Reading
The hierarchy of oa_pref file reading
It will be clear from the above that in a large installation the "oa_pref" files have a significant role. Each piece of software reads them in the following order:
| OA_ADMIN_xx | Top level configuration |
| OA_INSTALL_xx | Installation level |
| OA_HOME | User's personal "home" file |
| Current working directory | File specific to the current directory (rarely used) |
The rules for reading these files are:
- If a given directory does not exist, or no file is found in that directory, then no action is taken. This is not an error.
- A more recently read definition supersedes one read earlier, therefore "local" definitions can supersede "global" ones (unless it was locked ).
- If two of more of the directories in the table above are the same then that file is only read once from the first instance.