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When I try
echo test > /User/user/Desktop/test.txt
I just get the result:
zsh: no such file or directory: /User/user/Desktop/test.txt
Expected result is a text file on the Desktop containing the text "text".
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.7
It looks like this could be user error:
echo test > /User/user/Desktop/test.txt
should instead be
echo test > /Users/user/Desktop/test.txt
where of course "user" should be replaced by the actual username (matching the name of the account home folder).
Alternatively, the same could be achieved, more easily, like this:
echo test > ~/Desktop/test.txt
because the tilde character is a standard Unix shortcut for the user home folder.
You need to give the Terminal app access to the Desktop in the Files & Folders section of the Privacy & Security System Settings. The same also goes for the Documents & Downloads folders if you plan on accessing them. Most times macOS will prompt you to give permission for the Terminal, but sometimes it may not.
Use:
echo test > /Users/user/Desktop/text.txt
or:
echo test > ~/Desktop/test.txt
(257393)
My PATH variable is not broken! Anyway the echo command itself is working, but the issue seams to be the redirection. On my system the Terminal.app was granted full access, but the Terminal.app seams not to be allowed to write to the desktop.
Sure user is just a placeholder for my actual username, that is not secret, but I wanted to stay general.
In fact:
echo test > ~/Test.txt
is working ok, but then I need the finder to transfer the file!
The thread should be closed. It was really my typo User instead of Users. In fact, I was bitten by another Unix tool that was previously working and could no longer write due to Sonoma access restrictions. In trying to figure out why, I mistyped and thought that Sonoma even interfered with typing standard Unix commands, but I was wrong. Sorry about that.
I've been using the Unix command line since 1985, and before that that VAX/VMS command line. I still make typo's. Thank goodness for command line recall. I did not have that in the early days of VMS and Unix usage.
Unix shells do have a nice trick that helps a lot. Type the first part of the file name, and then hit the "Tab" key, and if you have typed enough to be unique, the shell will fill out the rest of the file name. If it fills out the name, but that is not the name you are looking for, hit "Tab" again, and the shell will try another file with the same prefix. If nothing happens when you hit "Tab" either no files match the part you typed, or there are multiple matches, and hitting the "Tab" key again may give a list of all the partial matches.
Play with the "Tab" and you will get feel for how it works. It is a nice feature to add to your bag of tricks.
PS. And before that, it was 80-column punched cards. There is no command line recall with 80-column punched cards. You have to get the printout, find your made a mistake, re-punch the card, put it into your card deck, then take it back to the computer center, and wait for them to run your job again. So corrections can happen only a few times per day.
Or paper tape… 😉 as was the case for my Fortran course in 197x.
The only value I got out of VMS was using the faster ACTnet at you know where to copy something from the left or right coast to my local ULTRIX or OSF/1 public folder. The VMS copy command did checksums so I could go home at night and the file would be transferred by the next morning.
Is your PATH damaged?
echo $PATH
I know zip about UNIX but shouldn't the lower case "user" be replaced by your user name?
Can't get standard unix commands working
