Quote:
Originally Posted by
riptorn41
Apple has this solution in their knowledge base (a bunch of other steps are involved that aren't pertinent here):
chown -R <new_name> /Users/<new_name>
angled brackets in this context mean this is a field you *must* enter. But do not enter the angled brackets.
If fields are wrapped in square brackets [ ], that indicates an optional field.
as mentioned, in a shell, angled brackets are used to redirect things; typically resulting in new files being created. your chown had 2 redirects which is why you were told "bob.hope is a directory" -- if /Users/bob.hope didn't exist at all, your command would have created a _file_ called /Users/bob.hope.
But because it already existed as a directory, the shell didn't let you overwrite it and gave you the reason why. If you had a _file_ called /Users/bob.hope, then your command would have overwritten that file.
So in this instance, you haven't broken it, but care does need to be taken when using redirects.
