How to Make a Programme Executable Anywhere in the Shell

How to make a programme executable anywhere in the SHELL

1. Make the scripts executable: chmod +x $HOME/scrips/* This needs to be done only once.
2. Add the directory containing the scripts to the PATH variable: export PATH=$HOME/scrips/:$PATH (Verify the result with echo $PATH.) The export command needs to be run in every shell session. For convenience, you want to add that command to the $HOME/.profile file so it is run automatically for you at log-in time.

Now you can execute script.pl some-arguments or script.py some-arguments from anywhere.

Register an .exe so you can run it from any command line in Windows

You need to make sure that the exe is in a folder that's on the PATH environment variable.

You can do this by either installing it into a folder that's already on the PATH or by adding your folder to the PATH.

You can have your installer do this - but you may need to restart the machine to make sure it gets picked up.

running a python script in the command line from any directory

For a simple script, the easiest way to make it executable is to simply add a Python shebang line, save the script to a directory that's on your PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin) and set the executable bit on the script.

E.g.

#!/usr/bin/python3
import sys
print('Hello, world! I am Python', sys.version)

saved as /usr/local/bin/python-hello followed by chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/python-hello will let you execute python-hello from anywhere.

More complex scripts are best made executable by packaging them correctly with a proper console_scripts entry point -- though something packed with PyInstaller would also work, although it'd be much heavier.

EDIT

A script with multiple modules should be organized into a package, e.g.

python_hello/
  __init__.py
  __main__.py
  greetings.py

__main__.py could then look like

def main():
    # ...

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

This way you can run the script with python -m python_hello as well as set up python_hello.__main__:main as a console script entry point.

Why can't Git Bash run my executable?

To run a program in the current directory in bash, you put ./ in front of it. So in your case:

$ ./sqlite3.exe

When you run sqlite3, bash will look for a program with exactly that name in all directories of the PATH environment variable, which by default includes standard locations for executables like /usr/local/bin but not your current directory. See here for more info on that.

Is it possible to make a Java executable?

After two and a half years I have stumbled upon a more complete answer than was given in 2016. The Java binaries can be embedded within the executable, contrary to John Hascall's answer. This article explains how this can be done in linux and unix like systems by adding a binary payload to a shell script.

I will offer a short summary of the procedure.

Given an executable jar named any_java_executable.jar
Given you want to create an executable named my_executable
Given a script file named basis.sh with the following contents

#!/bin/sh
MYSELF=`which "$0" 2>/dev/null`
[ $? -gt 0 -a -f "$0" ] && MYSELF="./$0"
java=java
if test -n "$JAVA_HOME"; then
    java="$JAVA_HOME/bin/java"
fi
exec "$java" $java_args -jar $MYSELF "$@"
exit 1

The native executable can be created by running the following two commands.

cat basis.sh any_java_executable.jar > my_executable;
chmod +x my_executable;

Then my_executable is a native executable capable of running the java program without depending on the location of the jar file. It can be executed by running

./my_executable [arg1 [arg2 [arg3...]]]

and can be used anywhere as a CLI tool if placed in /usr/local/bin.

Running .sh scripts in Git Bash

Let's say you have a script script.sh. To run it (using Git Bash), you do the following: [a] Add a "sh-bang" line on the first line (e.g. #!/bin/bash) and then [b]:

# Use ./ (or any valid dir spec):
./script.sh

Note: chmod +x does nothing to a script's executability on Git Bash. It won't hurt to run it, but it won't accomplish anything either.

Why am I getting IOException : Cannot run program ./shellScript.sh error = 2, No such file or directory in Java?

You should use ProcessBuilder to launch or one of the overloads of exec. You need to specify the pathname to the script and pass the same pathname as the current directory to run the script in:

File pwd = new File("/dir1/dir2");
String shell = new File(pwd, "shellScript.sh").toString();

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(shell);
// No STDERR => merge to STDOUT - or call redirectError(File)
pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
// Set CWD for the script
pb.directory(pwd);

Process p = pb.start();

// Move STDOUT to the output stream (or original code to save as String)
try(var stdo = p.getInputStream()) {
    stdo.transferTo(stdout);
}

int rc = p.waitFor();

Git Bash doesn't see my PATH

Got it. As a Windows user, I'm used to type executable names without extensions. In my case, I wanted to execute a file called cup.bat. In a Windows shell, typing cup would be enough. Bash doesn't work this way, it wants the full name. Typing cup.bat solved the problem. (I wasn't able to run the file though, since apparently bash couldn't understand its contents)

One more reason to switch to posh-git..

Thanks @Tom for pointing me to the right direction.

How to get a python script to run as an executable?

Add this to the top of your script

#!/usr/bin/env python

or

#!/usr/bin/env python3

depending if you want python2 or python 3

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