"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
Some early Unix shells produced the equally-cryptic
Famous quotes containing the words bad, command and/or file:
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—Russell Baker (20th century)
“Children from humble families must be taught how to command just as other children must be taught how to obey.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)