UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

When i run a program in terminal by typing in the entire path along with the program name for example

home/user/directory/subdirectory/program_name

I get this error:

Error initializing: File not found!

However when I change my directory to the directory of the program

cd /home/user/directory/subdirectory/

and then do

./program_name

it runs fine!

After a bit of research my hunch is that I need to change my PATH, but I'm not sure how to do that or if that is even my problem. Any suggestions?

I have seen that type of error in poorly written applications that attempt to open a configuration file relative to the location of the executable.

I agree that it is a message from the program, that makes sense. Unfortunately I didn't write this code, I'm just trying to modify it. What I'm attempting to do is run this program alongside another with a pipe using a similar command as this;

Code:

home/user/directory/subdirectory/program1 | home/user/directory/subdirectory/program2

But since "program1" won't open by just using it's path, is there a way to successfully open it using a pipe? Either that, or is there a way to modify my PATH to be able to open program 1 without being in it's directory? Thanks.

This might work:

Code:

(cd /home/user/directory/subdirectory/; programme1)|home/user/directory/subdirectory/program2

This will run the first programme in a subshell after switching the current directory to the directory where the needed file(s) reside. The second programme is executed in with the cwd set to the one where you invoked the command.

If you have the source to programme1, it might be worth tracking down the source of the problem and modifying the code such that it doesn't need to have the current working directory house the needed file(s).

COmbining the various ideas above and correcting the odd typo, this version stands a better chance:

Code:

(cd /home/user/directory/subdirectory/; ./program1)|/home/user/directory/subdirectory/program2

Part of your original problem could be the missing solidus at the start of each program path.

That fix looks like it will probably work. I won't know for sure until tomorrow, so I'll update this post on the status of the problem. Thanks for your help!

Also, @methyl, I'm assuming there isn't supposed to be a ")" at the end of the code you posted earlier. Either that or you meant to put a "(" right after the "|" symbol. I think in either case it would work, it just needs to either have both parentheses or none.

Thanks again.


EDIT: That solution worked. Thanks guys!

Quite right. I have removed the trailing ")".