Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site cwruecmp.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!decvax!cwruecmp!decot From: decot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot) Newsgroups: net.unix,net.flame Subject: perror(3) considered harmful Message-ID: <1061@cwruecmp.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Mar-84 05:43:42 EST Article-I.D.: cwruecmp.1061 Posted: Thu Mar 1 05:43:42 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Mar-84 00:08:53 EST Organization: CWRU Computer Engr. Cleveland, Ohio Lines: 33 Why does csh give the message % foo foo: Command not found. when foo is an executable (by me) shell file on my path? Because the first line of foo says #! csh -f And, of course, "csh" is not a full pathname (why does it have to be!?), so poor exec*(2) can't find it. What I want to know is, why in blazes doesn't somebody tell me that *csh* is the "Command not found" and not my innocent (at least "found") shell file? And why do protected directories refuse to acknoledge that they exist when I try to cd to them? I can find out the name and that it is indeed a directory by doing ls(1), so I keep checking my spelling and doing pwd's and all sorts of things when the real problem is that the message % pwd /usr % cd src src: No such file or directory. is simply WRONG. And who said ANYTHING about a file? If the kernel can't give more accurate messages, perror shouldn't be used. Dave Decot "Programmers are people, too." decvax!cwruecmp!decot (Decot.Case@rand-relay)