I have a shell script that runs from Automator. It works fine on a computer with a user name without any spaces. However I need to run it on a computer that has the user name "staff computer" and I get an error that there is no such directory. Is there a way around this?
JB001 wrote:
There was a space in the folder name so the other techniques came in handy also.
Just expand the quotes to include the Folder Name:
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME/The Folder Name"/PythonFile.py "$1" "$2"
or this if the script name has spaces
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME/The Folder Name/Python File.py" "$1" "$2"
even this would work:
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME"/"The Folder Name"/"Python File.py" "$1" "$2"
See: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.html
JB001 wrote:
There was a space in the folder name so the other techniques came in handy also.
Just expand the quotes to include the Folder Name:
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME/The Folder Name"/PythonFile.py "$1" "$2"
or this if the script name has spaces
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME/The Folder Name/Python File.py" "$1" "$2"
even this would work:
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME"/"The Folder Name"/"Python File.py" "$1" "$2"
See: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Quoting.html
Use:
/usr/bin/python3 /Users/Staff\ Computer/Desktop/PythonFile.py
Points off for spelling /usr as /user 🧐
Use the "$HOME" environment variable as Camelot suggested.
/usr/bin/python3 "$HOME"/Desktop/PythonFile.py "$1" "$2"
This is portable, as you won't need to change for each user.
The solution may differ depending on whether this is a one-off or not.
If you're hard-coding the path (not generally recommended, but usable in a pinch), you can quote the path:
/user/bin/python3 '/Users/Staff Computer/Desktop/PythonFile.py'
If this is dynamic (e.g. find the current user's home directory), then some degree of shell substitution via the $HOME variable, which should be safe (maybe coupled with quoting, too).
Try using the "short user name" instead. Also, if you are getting this error at all, it sounds like you are assuming the user's home directory is at /Users. That's not always the case. Use another method to get the user's home directory directly.
I didn't know how to use the environment variable - now I do. This makes it easier to install on a couple computers and works perfectly.
Also I was getting bad info on the user name. I was given the "long name" which had a space. Apple has two user names, a short name that did not include the space and a long name that did. The path uses the short name so there wasn't a space in the name. There was a space in the folder name so the other techniques came in handy also. Details will get you every time.
Thanks Tony
The path in Finder is Machintosh HD > Users > Staff Computer
The path being used to run the script is:
/user/bin/python3 /Users/Staff Computer/Desktop/PythonFile.py
as always - thanks
As always you come through
Great examples and link.
If I'm not careful I might actually learn this stuff ;-)
Thanks again.
How to run shell script in automator with space in users name
