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:

    “College professors have two bad traits. They are logical
    and they are easily flattered.”
    —Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    “Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
    In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
    An ancestor was rector there
    Long years ago, a church stands near,
    By the road an ancient cross.
    No marble, no conventional phrase;
    On limestone quarried near the spot
    By his command these words are cut:
    Cast a cold eye
    On life, on death.
    Horseman pass by!”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “Probably nothing in the experience of the rank and file of workers causes more bitterness and envy than the realization which comes sooner or later to many of them that they are “stuck” and can go no further.”
    —Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)