Where name is the name of a

• q script, executes the script
• serialized object, deserializes it into memory as variable name
• directory of a splayed table, maps the table to variable name, without loading any columns into memory
• directory and the value of one of the permitted partition types, the most recent partition directory is inspected for splayed directories and each such directory mapped into memory with the name of the splayed directory
• directory containing a kdb+ database, recursively loads whatever it finds there: serialized objects, scripts, splayed tables, etc.

Current directory When a directory is opened, it becomes the current directory.

Reload current directory You can reload the current database with \l .. This will ignore scripts and reload only data.

Never mind the dollars If a file or directory under the path being loaded has a dollar-sign suffix then it is ignored. e.g. db/tickdata/myfile$ and db/tickdata/mydir$ would be ignored on \l db/tickdata or on \l . if db/tickdata is the current directory.

q)\l sp.q            / load sp.q script
...
q)\a                 / tables defined in sp.q
`p`s`sp
q)\l db/tickdata     / load the data found in db/tickdata
q)\a                 / with tables quote and trade
`p`quote`s`sp`trade