Using Terminal to Enter File Path

UNIX abhors white space and reserved symbols in filenames. You have two choices to satisfy the shell, provided that the mat2 switch argument is the correct one:

mat2 -s ~/Movies/"Lab 10 HCL + CaCO3 Reaction".mp4

or the escaped white-space and reserved character symbol:

mat2 -s ~/Movies/Lab\ 10\ HCL\ \+\ CaCO3\ Reaction.mp4

The newer Unix shell for macOS uses backslashes to denote spaces in a name. So it would be:

mat2 -s Computer/Users/xxx/Movies/Lab\ 10\ HCL\ +\ CaCO3\ Reaction.mp4 

Access the Movies directory in Finder then drag the desired movie name to Terminal after you type in:

mat2 -s

don't forget the space after the s

Try:

mat2 -s "/Users/xxx/Movies/Lab 10 HCL + CaCO3 Reaction.mp4"

Are you substituting your home directory name for the 'xxx' in the path?

Do you have access to the folder of the user in question (the 'xxx')? If not, then sudo is required.

If sudo isn't working, then you've probably got the wrong path.

A shortcut for a user's home directory would be the '~user' format, e.g. the path would be '~xxx/Movies...'.

Then the next thing I like to do if I'm not 100% sure of the path is to use file completion, e.g. type...

mat2 -s ~xxx/Mov

...and then hit the tab key and it should expand Mov to Movies/, then expand it to...

mat2 -s ~xxx/Movies/Lab

...and hit tab, and it should add an escaped space (\ ), and maybe the next character(s), e.g. adding on the "1" from "10" if there are multiple options starting with "1" after that.

If the tab expansion doesn't give you anything, you can hit control-d and you'll get a list of all of the files and directories in the current context which match your string so far.

Another option instead of typing in the file path, just drag the file from the finder

window and the path will automatically be copied and in the right format.