Execute as .test rather than ./test

. will auto-complete to ./ (type . and press Tab) at least in modern Bash shells, so you shouldn't have to use a complex or insecure (like PATH modification) solution.

If it doesn't auto-complete you might need to install the "bash-completion" package.

or.. perhaps giving the interpreter an alias in the bashrc file and then simply

   p  file

It is possible to write such a function:

p() {
 ./"$@"
}

in your ~/.bashrc. Then you'll be able to run p app arguments instead of ./app arguments. This solution works for executables of any type, including scripts and binaries.

"$@" expands to appropriately quoted list of arguments passed to the function (preserving all special characters from glob or variable expansion), and, as @Scott pointed out, bash is clever enough to prepend ./ to the first one of them, preserving the rest.

It can be "risky" but you could just have . in your PATH.

As has been said in others, this can be dangerous so always ensure . is at the end of the PATH rather than the beginning.