I downloaded a program and I can't invoke the main executable. When I try to run it like this: ./craft I get the error: bash: ./craft: No such file or directory , but it is certainly there. I can view its contents by using vi like: vi craft , but when I go to run it bash can't find it anymore. What gives? I have full permissions to run it. What could be the reason for a binary like this one becoming undetectable by bash?

don't know for sure about your situation, but you're going to have to run the executable from the directory wherein it is installed or have it's location in your PATH-others know more about this than me, i'm just passing on what i have observed in my own setup. another thing, if this binary runs under a particular environment, that will have to be activated first though bash would probably note that unless installation has'nt been such to indicate that(something like java runtime environment). don't know that this will be of use to you, but keep at it and good luck.

nope. none of that is of use to me, but thanks anyway.

Two reason why you might get this error:

1) "./", the current directory, is not in your path. Try "./filename".
2) You also need to make sure the file has its executable bit set, see 'man chmod' to see how to do this.

Regards

Regards

well it's definately not the first one. I've tried running it in the path, running it with ./filename, changing permissions and everything else I could think of. I'll try your second suggestion. It seems quite likely. The thing I don't get is that I can open it with an editor, I can copy it, I can do a number of operations on it, but when I try to execute it, bash says it isn't there.

Only a program that has "execute" attribute can be run. Without it, it won't work. Permission 777 should do the trick.

yes, I know. chmod 777 was the first thing I did to it. And it is an executable, but if it wasn't bash would still try to run it if it had executable permissions. I tried all the obvious stuff right away.

Try invoking it with
sh craft

Are you sure it's even a binary?

Try running "file" on it to see.

Regards

bash-2.05a# file craft
craft: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped
bash-2.05a# ./craft
bash: ./craft: No such file or directory
bash-2.05a#

Try to run it with the full path, if it's in /usr/local use
/usr/local/craft

that was one of the first things I tried

Could you copy here result of ls -l?

bash-2.05a# ls -l
total 14088
drwxr-sr-x 2 959 391 4096 Feb 21 1997 buttons
-rwxrwxrwx 1 959 391 11328394 Jun 10 1997 craft
-rw-r--r-- 1 Aaron users 3008211 Aug 31 17:07 craft_l35.tar.Z
drwxr-sr-x 3 959 391 53248 Feb 21 1997 hcraft
drwxr-sr-x 3 959 391 4096 Feb 21 1997 html

try this file for yourself. You can download it at http://borneo.gmd.de/AS/janus/craft/index.html