I am trying to install a 3rd party library from GitHub through terminal. Before this installed Anaconda Python distribution on my system and that has modified my root directory of my terminal to;
Vinos-MBP:~ Vino$
So when try to navigate to a particular directory to install the said library using
cd /Users/Vino/<install location>
The terminal prints the following message;
-bash: cd: /Users/Vino/Documents/My: No such file or directory
I know this problem is because Python has modified my bash_profile startup file. I tried various online methods to fix this issue, but nothing actually works. Whenever I restart my terminal and navigate using cd, I get the same error. How do I reset $PATH to $HOME (like as before installing Anaconda), so that I can navigate to any folder on my system?
This is not a problem with $PATH or $HOME -- it looks to me like you have a space in the folder name, and aren't properly quoting/escaping it. If they aren't quoted or escaped, spaces are taken as separators between arguments (e.g. folder paths) rather than part of the path. If the folder you're trying to cd to is "/Users/Vino/Documents/My Installation Location", you could use any of these:
cd "/Users/Vino/Documents/My Installation Location"
cd '/Users/Vino/Documents/My Installation Location'
cd /Users/Vino/Documents/My\ Installation\ Location
cd ~/Documents/My\ Installation\ Location
cd ~/"Documents/My Installation Location" # Note that the ~/ part must not be quoted
There are a number of other characters that're perfectly legal to have in filenames that will cause trouble when used on the command line without quotes or escapes (including the quote and escape characters themselves!). One way to avoid trouble is to drag-and-drop an item from the Finder into the Terminal window, and it'll fill in a (properly escaped) path to that item.
Related
I could not find a usable solution to this seemingly simple problem, despite my best efforts.
I'm using MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6
I have a folder I want to copy with the following location:
/Users/ep9k/Desktop/Key-LogEcovaluator/whereami
I want to copy it to this directory using the terminal:
/Users/ep9k/Library/Application/Support/QGIS/QGIS3/profiles/default/python/plugins
I tried the following commands in the terminal. Notice I am in the 'whereami' folder when doing this:
whereami ep9k$ cp -r /Users/ep9k/Desktop/Key-LogEcovaluator/whereami /Users/ep9k/Library/Application Support/QGIS/QGIS3/profiles/default/python/plugins
whereami ep9k$ cp -a /Users/ep9k/Desktop/Key-LogEcovaluator/whereami /Users/ep9k/Library/Application Support/QGIS/QGIS3/profiles/default/python/plugins
I'm met with the following message indicating I am not using it correctly:
However, I created a "tester" folder on my desktop and can copy to this folder with no problems, using exactly the same command (except with the pathname changed to my tester folder).
I can also copy and paste things to this directory using the GUI "finder". What am I missing?
Your destination path contains at least one whitespace character ("Application Support"), which causes the "cp" command to think it's being given three arguments instead of two. Enclose the destination path in single or double quotes and you should be all right.
I'm trying to configure Cyberduck to read the Bookmark files from my Dropbox folder.
This is usually accomplished by this command:
defaults write ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path ~/Dropbox/Cyberduck
Super easy!!
But... Dropbox has since changed and if you have a Pro Account the Dropbox folder is renamed "Dropbox (Personal)".
I've tried to do this:
defaults write ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path ~/Dropbox\ \(Personal\)/
And I get this error:
not parse: [...]/Dropbox (Personal)/Apps/Cyberduck/. Try single-quoting it.
I tried single quoting like this but same error:
defaults write ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path '~/Dropbox\ \(Personal\)/'
How can I solve this?
You can single quote escape your parentheses by wrapping them in a double quote:
Instead of: ln -s '/Users/username/Dropbox (Company Name)/' DropboxCompanyName
Do: ln -s "'/Users/username/Dropbox (Company Name)/'" DropboxCompanyName
Notice the double quotes added to /Users/username/Dropbox (Company Name)/
So I cannot find a way to do a "defaults write" to a path with parentheses, but I did this workaround and it seemed to work for me (in my case I needed to link to my enterprise Dropbox account):
cd to your home folder and create a symlink of the directory that has the parentheses:
ln -s '/Users/username/Dropbox (Company Name)/' DropboxCompanyName
At that point, I was able to do do a defaults write that wrote ~/DropboxCompanyName as part of the path and it worked just fine.
All that said, your personal folder already has a hidden symlink: "Dropbox" that's in the same directory and pointing to "Dropbox (Personal)", so you should be able to do you original command as such:
defaults write ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path ~/Dropbox/Cyberduck
… because the "Dropbox" part of the path should still lead to your personal folder. This both what I've observed locally (when viewing hidden files) and what Dropbox says on their site: https://www.dropbox.com/help/9031
I am assuming you are using Unix in Terminal.
I have set up a folder of the same name in my Public Folder to test as shown below.
Your current referencing to the folder would seem correct. Dragging the folder into the Terminal window current command line will automatically give you the correct referencing to that folder.
As an alternative I suggest putting the name of the folder in double quotation marks. Even though there are brackets in the name, there is no need to escape these characters in Unix in Terminal in this instance when using double quotation marks. This makes it easier to humanly type the correct reference.
To reference a folder in the image below, for example, the following referencing works for the cd (change directory command):
~/Public/"Dropbox (Personal)"
Hence I suggest try:
ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path ~/Public/"Dropbox (Personal)"
As for the rest of this command, I am not sure that ch is a valid Unix command. I do not yet have enough Unix experience to guide you from here.
you have to put "" in the whole address
more like this
ch.sudo.cyberduck application.support.path "~/Public/Dropbox (Personal)"
I installed Git Extensions which automatically downloaded and installed Git for Windows, and when I use Git Bash, it shows the file path as /c/whatever/folder rather than C:\whatever\folder, and if I paste in a path from Windows Explorer, it chokes on it because it's expecting forward-slashes and no colon after the drive letter.
When I installed Git for Windows by itself previously, it showed the slashes/colon properly, but was much more limiting and harder to use (especially with copy/paste).
Why is it showing/expecting file paths with slashes and no colon, and how do I fix it?!
http://imgur.com/vMc7fU6
You could also try adding single quotes in the directory path copied from Windows Explorer and pasted in the Terminal prompt (e.g. cd 'D:\Documents\Developer Tools & Docs'). It worked for me. Check out the solution posted in the following link:
Escaping backslash in windows paths passed to unix programs
It's getting tripped up because the \ is an escape character in the Unix/Linux world. If the path you paste is like c:\\somefolder\\anotherfolder, it would be ok, because \\ says "I want a literal \. That said, my git bash understands a single \ as long as the path does not end with it. So cd c:\folder works, but cd c:\folder\ does not work.
BTW what error message is it giving you when it chokes, and can you give an example of a pasted path it chokes on.
This is caused by the Git Bash (Ming) shell, not because of anything git itself is doing.
If you run the mount command inside this shell, you will find that /c/ is the folder where your hard drive is mounted. If you want Git Bash to use a different folder name for your hard disk, you can map your disk to a different folder.
By the way, you shouldn't have to care about this when using git. Repos typically don't (and typically shouldn't) contain files in the root directory of a volume. Even if they did, git references files relative to the repository root. Since any folder that is the root level of a volume will also be the root level of any repo it's in, it will be called / in git, regardless of how the underlying operating system or shell labels it.
For your convenience, here is the output of mount from inside Git Bash on my laptop. You should get similar results. You can see that it indicates that C:\ is mounted on the /c folder.
chris#caerdydd MINGW64 ~
$ mount
C:/Program Files/Git on / type ntfs (binary,noacl,auto)
C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin on /bin type ntfs (binary,noacl,auto)
C:/Users/chris/AppData/Local/Temp on /tmp type ntfs (binary,noacl,posix=0,usertemp)
C: on /c type ntfs (binary,noacl,posix=0,user,noumount,auto)
Is there a way to get into an alias directory from shell with the command "cd" ? It always returns that "htdocs" isn't a directory.
Edit: I made the shortcut with the OS GUI -> rightclicked the htdocs directory and chose "Alias..." (i'm using a german OS if it's not alias maybe it's called shortcut in english?) then i moved it to my home directory (because my terminal starts from there when i open it).
All i want is to open my terminal and type "cd htdocs" so that i can work from there.
you can make symbolic link to it.
ln -s EXISTING_PATH LINK_NAME
e.g.
ln -s ~/Documents/books ~/Desktop/
Reference
Enter into a directory through an alias in Mac OS X terminal
All i want is to open my terminal and type cd htdocs so that i can work from there.
The easier approach is probably to ignore the links and add the parent directory of your htdocs directory to the CDPATH environment variable. bash(1) will check the contents of the CDPATH environment variable when you type cd foo to find the foo directory in one of the directories listed. This will work no matter what your current working directory is, and it'll be easier than setting symbolic links.
If the path to your htdocs is located /srv/www/htdocs/, then you could use CDPATH=/srv/www. Then, cd foo would first look for /srv/www/foo/ and change to it if it exists; if not, then it would look for foo in the current working directory and change to it if it exists. (This might get confusing if you have multiple htdocs directories on your system; in that case, CDPATH=.:/srv/www would let you change into a child directory easily but still use the /srv/www/htdocs/ version if no ./htdocs directory is present.)
You can add the CDPATH=/srv/www line to your ~/.bashrc file so it works every time you start a terminal.
I personally use this to quickly work in the directory which is present deep inside one of my Volumes in my Mac.
Open your ~/.bash_profile, create an alias to the directory by adding this:
alias cdh="cd /Volumes/Haiku/haiku/src/apps/superprefs"
Save it, restart your terminal. Now on typing cdh in your terminal should change the working directory to the one mentioned as the alias.
I am not sure how OSX exposes Alias links but since you are using bash you can just create a variable in your .bashrc file.
On its own line put:
htdocs=YourDirectoryPath/
Once you have restarted bash you can just type cd $htdocs
There is a old hint on macworld to do this in a way that is integrated with BASH: Enable 'cd' into directory aliases from the Terminal
Plus, here is an answer that uses this solution on superuser.
You may be able to use osascript to do this -- this command seems to work:
cd "`osascript -e "on run aFile" -e "set aFile to POSIX file aFile as alias" -e "tell application "\""Finder"\"" to return POSIX path of ( ( original item of aFile ) as text ) " -e "end run" path_to_my_Finder_alias 2>/dev/null`"
Basically this command is running an AppleScript that finds the destination path of the argument (path_to_my_Finder_alias) in a subshell, then wraps it in double quotes, and changes the directory to it.
Maybe someone with a little more bash expertise can turn it into a bash alias or function.
try:
alias cdgo=`echo cd /root/go/`
cdgo will run, then get command "cd /root/go/" and enter, and it will change your directory in current terminal process
It works on my centos, no test with osx
oh my god...i faced a big problem...i was created a .bash_profile in ~ folder and then set paths there...bust the big problem is after restarting my bash i see that none of my commands work like LS and RM and etc...
now i dont know how to fix it...some one help me...i need my terminal as soon as possible...
Make sure you are appending to the existing $PATH.
PATH=$PATH:/Users/mthalman/bin
To prevent this happening in the future:
When I edit my environment files (including bashrc, profile, login, and others), I always try starting another shell before quitting my editing environment. This protects me from the possibility of breaking my environment so that I can't log in.
Make sure your PATH includes the usual bin directories: /bin and /usr/bin.
First I would rename ~/.bash_profile to ~/old.bash_profile.
Then open that up in TextEdit (as a plain text document) and verify how you have set your path.
If you would prefer to use vim/emacs/nano/whatever, the act of renaming the file will allow new terminal sessions to use default paths, so from the command line you should be mostly fine.
Then verify you haven't clobbered $PATH as suggested by #Mark Thalman, above.
If you are in a Terminal Window, simply add in the /bin and /usr/bin back in your PATH.
$ PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:$PATH"
That should allow all the basic Unix command to work once more. Or, you can use the full path name for commands:
$ PATH="" #Can't find nothin'
$ ls
bash: ls: command not found.
$ /bin/ls -a #This will work!
. .. .bash_profile foo bar
Don't Reset PATH in your .profile!
As you discovered, you should never reset PATH in your `.bash_profile. Instead, you should always append and prepend to it:
PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
PATH="$PATH:$HOME/bin"
The first line will prepend /usr/local/bin to PATH which means if a command is in /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin, the /usr/local/bin version will be executed. Many system admins will put alternative base system commands in /usr/local/bin. For example, on Solaris, they might put VIM in /usr/local/bin/vi, so when you edit a file, you're using the improved VIM and not the base VI.
The second line appends your $HOME/bin to the end of $PATH. That means if there's a /bin/ls and you have ~/bin/ls, the /bin/ls will be executed first.
Never set PATH from scratch because each Unix system might have commands that you to access elsewhere in the system. For example, your site might require you to use X11, so you want /usr/X11/bin in your PATH, or you have GIT installed under the /opt/git directory, and you'll need /opt/git/bin in your path.
Sometimes, base utilities like ls might be replaced with upgraded versions of these utilities. On Solaris, you have the base vi and ls command, Most users like the GNU ls command because it uses color and prefer VIM to plain VI. I would included these utilities in /usr/local/bin and prepend that to my PATH.
And now a Word from a Sponsor
As you probably discovered, Finder doesn't list hidden files. That's why you can't see .bash_profile in Finder. You can use some hacks to change this, but it requires you to type them into the terminal window.
I use a Finder replacement called Path Finder. It contains a lot of neat Power User things such as allowing you to see hidden files, treat Packages such as apps as directories, and be able to view protected directories if you have Administrator access. There's a built in terminal and GUI Subversion client.
It's not cheap ($40), but you can download for free and try it out for 30 days.
BTW, I have absolutely no relationship to Cocoatech except as a customer, and I make no money from people buying Path Finder. It's just a tool I use.