cat using relative paths on mac

Question

I am trying to cat 4 files one directory down to a new file, also one directory down:

cat ./dira/file.txt ./dirb/file.txt ./dirc/file.txt ./dird/file.txt > ./dire/file.txt

I can get this to work from the Terminal, but not in the following:

for i in `ls -d prefix*`
do
  cd $i
  pwd
  cat ./dira/file.txt ./dirb/file.txt ./dirc/file.txt ./dird/file.txt > ./dire/file.txt
done

where pwd prints the correct directory. I get the error: -bash: : command not found.

See my edits. This works in the Terminal, but not in a simple loop. — Benjamin, Jul 09 '12 at 23:54
Is there any `\r`/`\n` or `\040`/`\240` confusion in your shell script? — ephemient, Jul 09 '12 at 23:59
The shell script is a plain text Text Edit document, so I don't think so. I don't see any bad line endings in bbedit, either. — Benjamin, Jul 10 '12 at 00:02
FWIW, `\040` is normal [Space] and `\240` is [Non-breaking space]. You could have `grep`'ed over the file to check for odd characters. — ephemient, Jul 10 '12 at 05:28

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '12 at 00:05

1

There must be a non-breaking space at the start of one of the lines in your file (easily done by typing option-space by accident during editing). The shell would consider that to be a word and try to run the non-breaking space as a command; this produces the "bash: : command not found" error that you see.

answered Jul 10 '12 at 00:05

Kevin Grant

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You can use normal spaces and tabs to indent. I suspect that you accidentally typed the non-breaking version (which is a different code that isn't recognized as whitespace by the shell). – Kevin Grant Jul 10 '12 at 00:08
I probably used regular spaces in Rich Text which got converted to the wrong space in plain text. Thanks... – Benjamin Jul 10 '12 at 00:09

cat using relative paths on mac

1 Answers1