syntax highlighting

["Paul O'Donnell" <odonnellp@rogers.com>]

Hi All,

I am a little confused about syntax highlighting in emacs. When I open a file
with *.c or *.html extensions and syntax highlighting is turned on I get the
appropriate syntax highlighting.

But what about bash script files? I managed to get the syntax highlighting to
work when the file extension is *.sh, which is nice, but what if it does not
have an *.sh extension? Not all scipt files have this extension.

For example, when I opened the file /home/paul/.bash_profile I got syntax
highlighting. It does not have an *.sh extension, so how does emacs know which
syntax highlighting to use? When I try to create my own scipts without naming
the file *.sh I don't get highlighting. How can I get this highlighting for such
a file?

I am a complete beginner with emacs so don't be afraid to insult me by pointing
out the obvious. Nothing is obvious to me.

Paul