How can I make a script executable?

Question

I'm new to Linux. I'm trying to make a script that prints something and initiates a shutdown command. This is my script:

#!/bin/bash    

echo Hello WOOOOORRRRRLLLLDDDDDDD

echo sudo poweroff

Every time I try to run my script,using

chmod +x Hello World BASH

or ./Hello World BASH

however, I get this error message:

chmod: cannot access 'Hello': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access 'World': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access 'BASH': No such file or directory

In general, everytime I try to run this script, the "no such file or directory" error message popped up. How can I fix this?

You are mistaken about something somewhere... the only way you could get output like that is if you either had chmod in the script, or if you were typing that in an attempt to run it, rather than typing the name of the script. — psusi, Jun 30 '17 at 00:12
@psusi I acutally used chmod at first, but it gave me the same output as running it regularly — dabberson567, Jun 30 '17 at 00:15
@wjandrea either with ./ or with chmod u+x, both gave me a no such file error — dabberson567, Jun 30 '17 at 00:15
@dabberson567 Please post the full command that you are running. And please [edit] your question to add details. — wjandrea, Jun 30 '17 at 00:16

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 30 '17 at 00:22

1

Because the file name has spaces in it, you need to use quotes or escapes so the space does not make it look like 3 different file names:

chmod a+x "Hello World BASH"
"./Hello World BASH"

Or

chmod a+x Hello\ World\ BASH
./Hello\ World\ BASH

answered Jun 30 '17 at 00:22

psusi

37,551

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 30 '17 at 00:27

0

Short answer

Run these commands in this order:

chmod +x "Hello World BASH"
./"Hello World BASH"

Long answer

A filename with spaces has to be quoted (with single or double quotes) or escaped (with backslashes) so that the shell understands that it's all part of the filename. Otherwise, it will break on the spaces and interpret one filename (Hello World BASH) as three filenames (Hello, World, and BASH)

Also chmod +x does not run the script, it makes the script executable.

By the way, if you don't have have execute permissions for a given file, you can call the interpreter to run it:

bash "Hello World BASH"

answered Jun 30 '17 at 00:27

wjandrea

14,236
4
48
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bash: ./Hello World BASH: No such file or directory – dabberson567 Jun 30 '17 at 00:32
Thats the error message that keeps on returning. – dabberson567 Jun 30 '17 at 00:33
@dabberson567 The the file doesn't exist in the wd. Maybe you could run ls and see if the file is there. – wjandrea Jun 30 '17 at 00:34
How did you get it working? – wjandrea Jun 30 '17 at 00:47

How can I make a script executable?

2 Answers2

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