Bash in Mac OSX terminal: "command not found". Why?

When I want to enter a command (for example say) it returns a message like this:

bash: say: command not found.

It appears every time I write a command. What do I have to do?

5 Answers

Have you made sure that your $PATH variable is set?

You can check by typing this in the Terminal:

echo $PATH

If nothing is listed after you try that... it might be part of the problem.

(For more information, you could try checking this page out: )

If you are using your own command and you are in it's directory you may need to add ./ before it.

before:

user$ my-command

after:

user$ ./my-command

Or add it to your path

If you use quotes it will not display them, but tell you that there is no command. Many tutorials use quotes to show what you should type in, but sometimes they don't say "Without the quotes."

In the username in OSX, sometimes the $ is included meaning that you do not have to include it in your command.

Let's find out if the say executable (program) is in the right place. In the terminal, type

which say

you should see

/usr/bin/say