UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Can anybody tell me how can I read files from floppy. The files which are written in dos format. What I want to do is read files which I have on my Windows Machine and read those files On RedHat7.1 Machine. When I do this command
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 mnt/floppy
I can see the files and I copy the files to some other directory but the problem is I can't execute those files. If I do "cat" command it shows all the contents of the files but you can't do "gcc" or just simply want to run that script like this "./Scriptname". It gives me an error that file or directory not present.
If anyone knows please let me know.

-Iftikhar

If you're running a script, the first thing to check is the sh-bang at the top of the file:

head -1 Scriptname

#!/bin/sh
or
#!/path/to/executable

Or which ever it may be. Next, verify that it's pointing to the correct place:

ls -l /bin/sh
or
ls -l /path/to/executable

If that doesn't work, there's your problem. You'll need to change the top line of the script to reflect where the shell it's calling is.

Also, if the file is binary (a program) it may have been damaged by being written to various filesystems. Also, it may not have been compiled to your system, in which case it can't use/find the shared libraries it was compiled to use. You probably won't be able to fix that easily... the best way would be to re-compile it, or get a binary built for your system.

One more thing, make sure the file is executable. Do a :
chmod u+x Scriptname
to set the eXecute bit.

One last thing, nake sure you are typing the file name exactly as it appears - Unix is case sensitive...

If that doesn't work, can you give us a little more information? The exact error, the script, etc...

Hope this helps!

Ooh, one more thing, since the file was written in msdos format, it may very well have <cr> characters on the end of each line. Many modern editors will simply ignore these, but the shell may not like it. Try the dos2unix command to "fix" the file.
man dos2unix

I am using the line
#!/bin/sh
which I know is correct. But the problem is when ever I use this command
./Filename
to execute a script it says the
" The file does not exist"
Then what I did was I used cat command like this
"cat Filename" and it printed the whole file. Which shows that the file is in the directory but for some reason it is not executing. I can use my "vi" editor or emacs editor to make changes but the problem still lies is that whenever I try to run that script it just throws this error
"File or Directory does not exist"
And I know that my scripts are fine becuase I have used telnet to use another Unix Terminal which is Solaris and that script works just fine on that system. It will work fine on my computer once it will find my files in the directory.
Please help me out here. I just can't use my data from that DOS machines.
-Iftikhar

Can you try this:
After the #!/bin/sh line, place into the file
set -x.

It will echo out what is happening, so you can see where it gets lost, if it even begins... You can paste the result back here, if you'd like. In that case, though, it would be helpful if you pasted the script, if it's not too large.

Also, have you tried "auto-complete"ing the file? Type the first few letters of the name, and hit the [Esc] key twice. If it's executable, and the file exists (it'll fill in any odd non-printing characters, if it needs to), it should finish the filename for you.

I tried to use that escape command it reads and auto completes the file name but for some reason whenever I try to run the file it says
File or Directory does not exist.
I am running the file like this
./FileName.
It is very strange, I have talked to several people they are surprised too. It is not even reading or getting into the files so set -x command will not get executed too. And it is not getting executed. Please help me out.
Regards
-Iftikhar

Very odd... can you possibly paste the script here, if it's not too large?