Home / ubuntu / Questions / 24685
Accepted
Evan
Asked: 2011-02-04 14:00:03 +0800 CST

Need help fixing a strange path error in bash

  • 772

I have two executable files I downloaded and am trying to add to the path. They are located in

/home/user/folder

and the specific files are

/home/user/folder/app1
/home/user/folder/app2

Both app1 and app2 have the executable flag set to all (user, group, other).

I can execute the files if I am in /home/user/folder and I execute these commands

./app1
./app2

However I can't run them from elsewhere. I added this line to my .profile

PATH="$PATH:/home/user/folder"

and then sourced the path with

. /home/user/.profile

and I can see app1 and app2 when I use command completion (pressing tab). However here is what happens when I try to run app1 or app2 with the following commands (the following only shows 'app1' but the same is true of 'app2')

user@comp:~$ app1
-bash: app1: command not found
user@comp:~$ /home/user/folder/app1 
-bash: app1: command not found
user@comp:~/folder$ ./app1
(program runs)

I'm stumped :), I must have missed something simple. Thanks for your help!!

UPDATE

Ok, I found some errors in the path which I think I fixed, but now it's not running in any case - which for some reason I think is a step forward. Thanks for suggesting the following steps, here is their output:

user@computer:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/share/fsl/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games:/usr/local/matlab/bin:/usr/local/VoxBo/bin:/usr/local/itt/idl64/bin:/usr/local/afni/bin/:/usr/local/mricron:/usr/lib/voxbo/bin:/home/user/folder:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11/:/usr/games/:/usr/local/matlab/bin:/usr/local/VoxBo/bin/:/usr/local/itt/idl64/bin:/usr/local/afni/bin/:/usr/local/mricron/
user@computer:~$ typeset -p PATH
declare -x PATH="/usr/share/fsl/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games:/usr/local/matlab/bin:/usr/local/VoxBo/bin:/usr/local/itt/idl64/bin:/usr/local/afni/bin/:/usr/local/mricron:/usr/lib/voxbo/bin:/home/user/folder:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11/:/usr/games/:/usr/local/matlab/bin:/usr/local/VoxBo/bin/:/usr/local/itt/idl64/bin:/usr/local/afni/bin/:/usr/local/mricron/"
user@computer:~$ type app1
app1 is /home/user/folder/app1
user@computer:~$ type app2
app2 is /home/user/folder/app2
user@computer:~$ app1
bash: /home/user/folder/app1: No such file or directory
user@computer:~$ app2
bash: /home/user/folder/app2: No such file or directory
user@computer:~$ /home/user/folder/app1
bash: /home/user/folder/app1: No such file or directory
user@computer:~$ /home/user/folder/app2
bash: /home/user/folder/app2: No such file or directory
user@computer:~$ cd /home/user/folder
user@computer:~/folder$ app1
bash: /home/user/folder/app1: No such file or directory
user@computer:~/folder$ ./app1
bash: ./app1: No such file or directory
user@computer:~/folder$ ./app2
bash: ./app2: No such file or directory
user@computer:~/folder$ ls -l
total 29384
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 14949776 2011-02-03 11:09 app1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 15137300 2011-02-03 11:10 app2
user@computer:~/folder$

Thanks for everyone's input!

64-bit

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I know some of this is repetitive.... but...

    Edit your BASH RC file:

    vim ~/.bashrc

    Export the PATH:

    export PATH=$PATH:/home/$username/folder/

    If you don't want to log in again to get the path, SOURCE it:

    source ~/.bashrc

    Make sure the file is yours and executable:

    chown -R $username /home/$username/folder/
chmod +x /home/$username/folder/app*

    Try to run:

    cd
app1
app2

    Still have the command not found error? Well, what kind of files are app1 and app2?

    file /home/$username/folder/app1
file /home/$username/folder/app2

    If they are text files, it could be that they are scripts, like BASH or Python. If so, open them up with an editor to see if you can glean the source of the problem. If you paste any of the contents of the text files (if, indeed, they are text files), be sure to please include the very first line - the "file magic" like #!/bin/sh, for example.

    • 2