If <script/binary> is either a script or an executable binary file, which of the following commands can be used to execute it? If there are more than one way, how do they differ?
$ <script/binary>
$ ./<script/binary>
$ sh <script/binary>
$ source <script/binary>
$ . <script/binary>
Are there further ways?
The following commands are the same, a dot component means "current directory". To allow for being executed, the files need to have executable permissions:
path/to/binary
./path/to/binary
Note that if a path does not contain a slash, it is treated as a command (either a shell built-in or a program that is looked up in the $PATH environment variable).
The following are almost the same, they execute a shell script (not a binary!) in the current shell environment. A small difference between the two lines are described on this Unix.SE question.
. path/to/script
source path/to/script
Finally you mentioned sh script. Again, this only works for shell scripts and not binaries. You are basically executing the sh program with the script name as argument. In the case of sh, it just treats this argument as shell script and executes it.
For answers restricted to shellscripts, see Different ways to execute a shell script.
