Bad command or file name
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"Bad command or file name" is a common error message in Microsoft's MS-DOS and some other operating systems.[1] It is occasionally used as an example of a computer message that is perfectly accurate yet confusing to the average user[citation needed].
COMMAND.COM produced the message "Bad command or file name" when the first word of a command could not be interpreted. For MS-DOS, the first word of a command was the name of an internal command, external command, executable file or batch file,[2] therefore the error message provided an accurate description of the problem, yet easily confused novices. Though the source of the error was often a mistyped command, the wording gave the impression that files named in later words were damaged or had illegal filenames. Later, the wording of the error message was changed, both OS/2[citation needed] and Windows NT output The name specified is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.[3]
Some early Unix shells produced the equally cryptic "foo: no such file or directory" (where foo is the first word of the command) for the same reasons. Most modern shells produce separate error messages similar to foo: command not found and foofile: No such file or directory for unrecognized commands, though some still produce the earlier message.[4]
See also
References
- ^ Jim Cooper, (2002). Using MS-DOS 6.22. Que Publishing. ISBN 9780789725738
- ^ "Instructrions:". MSDN. Microsoft. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
- ^ "From Command Prompt: "The Name Specified Is Not Recognized..." :". Microsoft. Microsoft. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
- ^ A current example is tclsh with the command "exec nosuchcommand"
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