bash -e: No such file or directory

[donpdonp]

i just cloned the project and added the bin path to PATH, but get an error from env.

$ rbenv
/usr/bin/env: bash -e: No such file or directory
$ head -1 .rbenv/bin/rbenv

!/usr/bin/env bash -e

$ env bash -e
$

[josh]

Do you have bash on your machine?

[mhansen]

I also get this error, I have bash on my machine. Ubuntu 11.04.

The problem comes on line 8 of bin/rbenv, where it tries to cd into a directory called rbenv, which doesn't exist. I have no idea why it's trying to cd into a nonexistent dir.

Running bash under debug mode (with -x) shows this:

mark@mt~/.rbenv/bin> bash -x -e rbenv 
++ abs_dirname rbenv
+++ pwd
++ local cwd=/home/mark/.rbenv/bin
++ local path=rbenv
++ '[' -n rbenv ']'
++ cd rbenv
rbenv: line 8: cd: rbenv: Not a directory
[/snip/]

[gutenye]

I have the same problem.

#!/usr/bin/env bash -e

what's the -e option?. It seems linux's env doesn't support option in hashbang.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# just use bash is fine.

#!/usr/bin/env ls -l
#=> /usr/bin/env: ls -l: No such file or directory

my platform is ArchLinux.

[ndreas]

I also get this on Debian testing. It seems the -e argument to bash causes the shell to exit right away when an error occurs, which alternatively can be enabled using set -e when bash is started.

The solution is to replace

#!/usr/bin/env bash -e

with

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e

[mhansen]

the solution is to not cd into a directory that doesn't exist

[grahamedgecombe]

@mhansen: I think @ndreas' fix is also important - on my machine (Debian Squeeze), this does not work:

~% cat > test.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash -e
echo "hello world"
~% chmod +x test.sh
~% ./test.sh 
/usr/bin/env: bash -e: No such file or directory
~% 

whereas the proposed alternative does:

~% cat > test.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
echo "hello world"
~% chmod +x test.sh
~% ./test.sh 
hello world
~% 

[mhansen]

Sorry, you're quite right. That's very confusing!

env is trying to run a file called bash -e, which it can't find anywhere in the path, instead of looking for a file called bash and passing -e as an argument.

$ env --version
env (GNU coreutils) 8.5

[telemachus]

Arguments on the shebang line are a known portability issue (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_(Unix)#Portability). Get enough people using something and the portability issues come out to play. But ndreas's fix should do the trick.

@mhansen I don't think the issue is env (its version or anything), but rather that different systems handle tokenizing the shebang line differently.

[josh]

#26

[donpdonp]

Thanks for the fix! It works fine now. Its odd that the error only occurs when the script is executed from the command line.

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.2.8(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
$ cat a
#!/usr/bin/env bash -e
echo hello
$ ./a
/usr/bin/env: bash -e: No such file or directory
$ bash ./a
hello
$ 

[donpdonp]

When I type
$ ./a

Its still bash doing the work there to interpret the script, right?

Oh hold the phone - thinking back to unix classes. Bash is doing a
fork() and linux is trying to interpret the executable.

Thanks for the note!

Don

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 10:56 AM, grahamedgecombe
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

@donpdonp, it's because, as mentioned earlier, when Linux parses the shebang line it doesn't split the arguments up, so it basically runs this:

   /usr/bin/env "bash -e"

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
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