In Unix and Unix-like operating systems, a file or directory name that starts with a dot (.) is considered to be a hidden file or directory. Hidden files and directories are not normally displayed when listing the contents of a directory using commands such as ls. To list hidden files and directories, we can use the ls -a command, which will show all files and directories, including hidden ones. The dot (.) at the beginning of a file name has no special meaning to the operating system, but it is often used by convention to indicate a configuration file or other file that is meant to be hidden from normal view. For example, the file .bashrc in a user's home directory is a configuration file for the Bash shell, and the file .gitignore is used to specify files that should be ignored by Git. Keep in mind that the dot (.) is also used to represent the current directory and the parent directory in a file path. For example,./myfile refers to the file myfile in the current directory, and ../myfile refers to the file myfile in the parent directory.