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Bash script prints "Command Not Found" on empty lines
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I'm using bash for the first time. Wrote a code that is supposed to take "stats" as a command, but whenever I use "stats" in my command lines I kept getting the following error:
bash: stats: command not found
I googled around and a lot of people are saying this error is usually associated with PATH problems. Running "echo $PATH" yields the following results:
/bin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/apps/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/nfs/stak/students/z/myname/bin:.
I made sure my program started with
#!/bin/bash
Is my PATH wrong? If so, how do I fix it? If not, any suggestions on what else I should look into? Thank you all for your time and help.
It might be a PATH problem, it might be a permission problem. Some things to try.
1) If stats is not in your current directory, change directory (cd) to the directory where stats is and do
bash stats
If stats executes correctly, then you know at least that the script is OK. Otherwise, look at the script itself.
2) Try to execute the script with
./stats
If this gives
bash: ./stats: Permission denied
Then you have a permission problem. Do a
chmod a+rx stats
and retry. Note: a+rx is perhaps a bit wide; some may suggest
chmod 755 stats
is a better choice. Hint: from the comments, I see that this is one of your problems.
3) From the name of the directory, I get the impression that the file is on NFS. It might therefore be mounted as 'noexec', meaning that you cannot execute any files from that mount. You might try:
cp stats /tmp
chmod 700 /tmp/stats
/tmp/stats
4) Check the full path name for stats. If you are still in the same directory as stats, try
pwd
Check if this directory is present in the PATH. If not, add it.
export PATH=$PATH:/nfs/stak/students/z/myname/344
and try stats again.
Your PATH looks reasonable. PATH problems are a common source of errors like this, but not the only one.
The error message ": No such file or directory" suggests that the script file has DOS/Windows-style line endings (consisting of a carriage return followed by linefeed) instead of unix-style (just linefeed). Unix programs (including shells) tend to mistake the carriage return for part of the line, causing massive confusion.
In this instance, it sees the shebang line as "#!/bin/bash^M" (where "^M" indicates the carriage return), goes looking for an interpreter named "/bin/bash^M", can't find it, and prints something like "/bin/bash^M: No such file or directory". Since the carriage return makes the terminal return to the beginning of the line, ": No such file or directory" gets printed on top of the "/bin/bash" part, so it's all you see.
If you have the dos2unix program, you can use that to convert to unix-style line endings; if not, there are a variety of alternate conversion tools. But you should also figure out why the file has Windows/DOS format: did you edit it with a Windows editor, or something like that? Whatever caused it, you should make sure it doesn't happen again, because Windows/DOS format files will cause problems with most unix programs.
Related
A formely working bash script no longer works after switching computers. I get the following error:
No such file or directory.
Before going on, please excuse any mistakes you may find since english is not my native language.
The script was used in cygwin under Windows XP. I now had to switch to cygwin64 under Windwos 7 (64bit).
The script is used as a checkhandler for the program SMSTools3 to split a file with a specific format into multiple smaller ones, which the program then uses to send SMS to multiple recipients. The script was copied directly from the page of SMSTools3 and uses the package formail.
After looking up the error the most likely problem was that the environmantle path was not set up to look in the right path (/usr/bin). I therefore added it to the path but to no avail.
I then deleted other entries in the enviromental path of windows which contained spaces because that could have been another explanation, but again to no avail.
Following is a minimal example of the code which produces the error.
#!/bin/bash
# Sample script to allow multiple recipients in one message file.
# Define this script as a checkhandler.
echo $PATH
which formail
outgoing="/var/spool/sms/outgoing"
recipients=`formail -zx "To:" < "$1"`
I added the lines the lines echo $Path and which formail to show if the script can find the correct file. Both results look fine, the second command gives me the right output '/usr/bin/formail'
But the line recipients=... throws me the error:
No such file or directory.
I do not have much experience with bash scripting, or cygwin in general. So if someone on this wonderful board could help me solve this problem, I would be really grateful. Thank you all for your help.
EDIT:
First of all thank you all for your comments.
Secondly, I would like to apologize for the late reply. The computer in question is also used for other purposes and my problem is part of a background routine, so I have to wait for "free time" on the pc to test things.
For the things #shellter pruposed: The ls command returned an error: '': No such file or directory.
The which -a formail as well as the echo $(which -a formail) commands that #DougHenderson pruposed returned the 'right' path of /usr/bin/formail. echo \$1 = $1 before the recipent line returned the path to the checkhandler file (/usr/local/bin/smsd_checkhandler.sh), the same command after the recipent line seems to show a empty string ($1 = ). Also, the pruposed change to the recipent line did not change the error.
For the dos2unix conversion that #DennisWilliamson pruposed, I opened the file in notepad++ to use their build in converion, but it showed me that the file is in unix format with Unix style line endings.
I am trying to learn UNIX.
I am using a book called “Wicked Cool Shell Scripts”.
I am told that .bash_profile contains my login for bash and that I can add paths to it so that commands I enter in Terminal will find the scripts I am writing.
The contents of my current bash_profile is:
export PATH=~/bin:$PATH
When I type echo $PATH I get:
/usr/local/opt/php#7.0/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin
I would like to add a path so that - as the book suggests - I can write scripts and refer to them directly from the command line, instead of having to constantly navigate to that directory to run them.
I have a file with a shebang. It runs fine when I type its name and am in the same directory. I have moved that file to the folder scripts, which is located under crg/Users/ (ie: Users/crg/scripts)
According to this book, I can now alter my $PATH to include that directory, so that when I type that filename, the program will run.
I cannot do this successfully.
I don’t know why.
After every edit, I quit terminal and reopen it, to ensure it is using the newly edited bash_profile.
As per the books instructions on page 5, I have tried entering this in my bash_profile:
export PATH=”/Users/crg/scripts/:$PATH”
I save my bash_profile, quit Terminal, reopen it and type echo $Path
This is the result:
”/Users/crg/scripts/:??
This is not right. In fact, it's wildly wrong. And it does not allow me to run scripts from the folder indicated. It also seems to completely overwrite whatever was in the bash_profile before this, so I cannot - after doing this 'simple edit' suggested by a 'professional' - run a php -version command from the Terminal.
I am at a complete loss as to why this is happening.
Why is there a quotation mark at the beginning of this line (but not at the end)?
What's with the colon and the 2 question marks at the end of this line?
How do I add/append a path to my bash_profile?
More questions:
When I try and solve this on my own using “the Internet”, I discover many interesting versions of this ‘simple’ process: Here’s one suggested by a ‘professional’:
export PATH="${PATH}:/path/to/program/inside/package"
This is very different from what the book says...
Here’s another version of ‘how to do it’ by ‘a professional’:
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/sbin/modemZapp
Notice that this one doesn’t even have quotes. In both, the PATH variable comes before the actual path.
Why are there so many 'versions' of how to perform this simple task?
Can someone please tell me how to add a path to my .bash_profile?
UPDATE: I have followed the advice here, (add it to etc/paths) but this does not work either.
I get the exact same thing when I type echo $PATH in a new Terminal:
/usr/local/opt/php#7.0/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr:/usr/local/share/npm/bin:/Users/fhb/scripts:/opt/X11/bin
I can't help but note a comment on that last page: "I have been through at least a dozen different methods for adding directories to $PATH. Why are there so many and why do so few of them work?"
To answer your first question if you look closely your quotes are ” instead of ". I'm guessing you edited either your bash_profile or this post in a rich text editor instead of a plain text one. I would recommend notepad for Windows or nano for *nix if you are writing code. To fix this issue, replace the ” with ".
To answer your second question, bash is quite forgiving and will allow you to set a string variable in multiple different ways, even without quotes. However you can run into issues when a string contains whitespace, for example: /Users/lilHenry/my scripts.
The "${PATH}" syntax is just another way to declare a string. It has the benefit that it allows you to interpolate variables into a string like so:
prefix="foo"
echo "${prefix}bar"
This will output foobar, whereas echo "$prefixbar" will not output anything as the variable prefixbar has not been set. I would suggest sticking with the export PATH="/Users/me/bin:$PATH" syntax.
I'm trying to run several sets of commands in parallel on a few remote hosts.
I've created a script that constructs these commands, and then writes the output in a local file, something along the lines of:
ssh <me>#<ip1> "command" 2> ./path/to/file/newFile1.txt & ssh <me>#<ip2>
"command" 2> ./path/to/file/newFile2.txt & ssh <me>#<ip2> "command" 2>
./path/to/file/newFile3.txt; ...(same repeats itself, with new commands and new
file names)...
My issue is that, when my script runs these commands, I am getting the following errors:
bash: ./path/to/file/newFile1.txt: No such file or directory
bash: ./path/to/file/newFile2.txt: No such file or directory
bash: ./path/to/file/newFile3.txt: No such file or directory
...
These files do NOT exist but will be written. That being said, the directory paths are valid.
The strange thing is that, if I copy and paste the whole big command, then it works without any issue. I'd rather have it automated tho ;).
Any ideas?
Edit - more information:
My filesystem is the following:
- home
- User
- Desktop
- Servers
- Outputs
- ...
I am running the bash script from home/User/Desktop/Servers.
The script creates the commands that need to be run on the remote servers. First thing first, the script creates the directories where the files will be stored.
outputFolder="./Outputs"
...
mkdir -p ${outputFolder}/f{fileNumb}
...
The script then continues to create the commands that will be called on remotes hosts, and their respective outputs will be placed in the created directories.
The directories are there. Running the commands gives me the errors, however printing and then copying the commands into the same location works for some reason. I have also tried to give the full path to directory, still same issue.
Hope I've been a bit clearer.
If this is the exact error message you get:
bash: ./path/to/file/newFile1.txt: No such file or directory
Then you'll note that there's an extra space between the colon and the dot, so it's actually trying to open a file called " ./path/to/file/newFile1.txt" (without the quotes).
However, to accomplish that, you'd need to use quotes around the filename in the redirection, as in
something ... 2> " ./path/to/file/newFile1.txt"
Or the first character would have to something else than a regular space. A non-breaking space perhaps, possible something that some editor might create if you hit alt-space or such.
I don't believe you've shown enough to correctly answer the question.
This doesn't look like a problem with ssh, but the way you are calling the (ssh) commands.
You say that you are writing the commands into a file... presumably you are then running that file as a script. Could you show the code you use to do that. I believe that's your problem.
I suspect you have made a false assumption about the way the working directory changes when you run a script. It doesn't. You are listing relative paths, so its important to know what they are relative to. That is the most likely reason for it working when you copy and paste it... You are executing from a different working directory.
I am new to bash scripting and was building my script based on another one I had seen. I was "running" the command by simply calling the variable where the command was stored:
$cmd
Solved by using:
eval $cmd
instead. My bad, should have given the full script from the start.
echo: write error: Bad file descriptor
Throughout my code (through several bash scripts) I encounter this error. It happens when I'm trying to write or append to a (one) file.
LOGRUN_SOM_MUT_ANA=/Volumes/.../logRUN_SOMATIC_MUT_ANA
I use the absolute path for this variable and I use the same file for each script that is called. The file has a bunch of lines just like this. I use the import '.' on each script to get it.
echo "debug level set for $DEBUG_LEVEL" >> ${LOGRUN_SOM_MUT_ANA}
Worth noting:
It typically happens AFTER the FIRST time I write to it.
I read about files 'closing' themselves and yielding this error
I am using the above line in one script, and then calling another script.
I'd be happy to clarify anything.
For others encountering the same stupid error under cygwin in a script that works under a real Linux: no idea why, but it can happen:
1) after a syntax error in the script
2) because cygwin bash wants you to replace ./myScript.sh with . ./myScript.sh (where dot is the bash-style include directive, aka source)
I figured it out, the thumb drive I'm using is encrypted. It outputs to /tmp/ so it's a permission thing. That's the problem!
I'm trying to write a script that contains this
screen -S demo -d -m which should start a new screen session named demo and detach it.
Putting screen -S demo -d -m in the command line works.
If I put it in a file named boot.sh, and run it ./boot.sh I get
Error: Unknown option m
Why does this work in the command line but not as a shell script?
This file was transferred from windows and had ctrl-M characters.
Running "screen" on my Linux machine, a bad option (Screen version 4.00.03jw4 (FAU) 2-May-06) gives the error,
Error: Unknown option -z"
while your description includes no dash before the offending option. I'd check that the characters in your script file are what you expect them to be. There are many characters that look like a dash but which are not.
cat -v boot.sh
may show something interesting as it'll show codes for non-ascii characters.
This may seem a little like the "make sure your printer is plugged in" kind of help, but anyway:
have you tried to check if the screen you're invoking from the script is the same as the one invoked from the command line ?
I'm thinking you may change the PATH variable inside your script somewhere and perhaps screen from the script would be something else (a different version, perhaps ?).