Bad Command or File Name

"Bad command or file name" is a common error message in Microsoft's MS-DOS and some other operating systems.

In command.com, the message Bad command or file name is produced if the user mistypes the first word of a command line. This first word must be either the name of a built-in "command", or of an executable file or batch file. Therefore the error was printing what, to the programmer, was an accurate description of the problem: there was no such command and there was no such file. Novices, in general, had trouble understanding the message, so later operating systems changed it; for instance, OS/2 and the Windows NT (and newer) family use is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Some early Unix shells produced the equally-cryptic : no such file or directory (because they searched for a file matching the command name and this is the strerror when a file of a given name is not found). Most modern shells produce : Command not found.

Famous quotes containing the words bad, command and/or file:

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    —Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “There are confessable agonies, sufferings of which one can positively be proud. Of bereavement, of parting, of the sense of sin and the fear of death the poets have eloquently spoken. They command the world’s sympathy. But there are also discreditable anguishes, no less excruciating than the others, but of which the sufferer dare not, cannot speak. The anguish of thwarted desire, for example.”
    —Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

    “While waiting to get married, several forms of employment were acceptable. Teaching kindergarten was for those girls who stayed in school four years. The rest were secretaries, typists, file clerks, or receptionists in insurance firms or banks, preferably those owned or run by the family, but respectable enough if the boss was an upstanding Christian member of the community.”
    —Barbara Howar (b. 1934)