Command Not Found problem

[meskue]

When I use “do shell script” command in applescript to launch an application i get command not found errors for the application but when i run the exact same command in my shell it works fine? Any ideas?

[waltr]

hi mes,

post the code, otherwise you are just asking for the best guess.

[meskue]

all the shell script is is a command to open a program called paraprof which is in the permanent PATH…well i can type paraprof in the shell and the program opens, however, when i go to applescript and type do shell script “paraprof” i get a command not found error.

[meskue]

also, i recently restored my /etc/profile from a backup after making some changes to it, it is back to the original now, but do i need to do anything to get programs outside of the shell to associate with the profile again?

[gyuen]

@meskue

all the shell script is is a command to open a program called paraprof which is in the permanent PATH…well i can type paraprof in the shell and the program opens, however, when i go to applescript and type do shell script “paraprof” i get a command not found error.

Scripts probably aren’t aware of the shell environment. You can find the path within Terminal by typing “type paraprof”. Then specify the full path like

do shell script “/usr/local/bin/paraprof”

[waltr]

hi mes,

guyen is correct, but here are more details:

“do shell script”, uses /bin/sh, not /bin/bash, and will not use your .bash_profile.

if you don’t code your shell script to use a specific path, you cannot predict what the results of your script will be. will it use a builtin? will it use another, more limited version of a program? will it not find the program? here’s what Apple has to say:

Q: My command works fine in Terminal, but when I try to use it in do shell script, I get an error about “command not found.” What’s going on?

A: There are two possibilities. First, do shell script always uses /bin/sh to interpret your command, not your default shell, which Terminal uses. (To find out what your default shell is, say echo $SHELL in Terminal.) While some commands are the same between shells, others are not, and you may have used one of them. If you write your do shell script scripts in Terminal first, always use sh. You can start sh by typing /bin/sh; type exit to get back to your normal shell.

Second, when you use just a command name instead of a complete path, the shell uses a list of directories (known as your PATH) to try and find the complete path to the command. For security and portability reasons, do shell script ignores the configuration files that an interactive shell would read, so you don’t get the customizations you would have in Terminal. Use the full path to the command, for example, /sbin/ifconfig instead of just ifconfig. To find the full path in Terminal, say which command-name, for example, which ifconfig; to see the list of places do shell script will search, say do shell script “echo $PATH”.

(This answer glosses over a few details ” see Gory Details if you care.)

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn2065.html

EDITED: to quote.

[meskue]

hey thanks a lot that worked, sorry im kind of new to applescript and such