Piping commands is causing "command not found" error

[vnuckcha]

Hello,

I have just installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and i am encountering the following problem:

$ history | grep lib
bash: grep: command not found

However, grep exists. Running

$ which grep
/bin/grep

The same problem exists when i run for example,

$ history | less
bash: less: command not found

Would someone have an explanation and a solution ?

Kind Regards

[iaculallad]

What displays when your issue the command below on your terminal:

echo $PATH

[ingeva]

Hello,

I have just installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and i am encountering the following problem:

$ history | grep lib
bash: grep: command not found

However, grep exists. Running

$ which grep
/bin/grep

The same problem exists when i run for example,

$ history | less
bash: less: command not found

Would someone have an explanation and a solution ?

Kind Regards

grep doesn't find "lib".
less doesn't find its command. I don't remember less much, but it's probably missing a parameter. Try less --help and grep --help.

Probably nothing wrong with grep or less. They both give you some feedback.

[vnuckcha]

Hello,

This is the output of the PATH variable:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

As you can see, /bin is in the path.

:/

[vnuckcha]

Hi Ingeva,

The errors mean that the commands (grep and less) cannot be located on the filesystem.

The

$echo $PATH

command that iaculallad asked me to check is to verify if those commands are indeed on the system path.

Hope this helps towards your understanding of the problem.

Kind Regards

[iaculallad]

Hello,

This is the output of the PATH variable:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

As you can see, /bin is in the path.

:/

Could you check your /etc/profile file if we are similar with what I'm posting below:

# /etc/profile: system-wide .profile file for the Bourne shell (sh(1))
# and Bourne compatible shells (bash(1), ksh(1), ash(1), ...).

if [ -d /etc/profile.d ]; then
  for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -r $i ]; then
      . $i
    fi
  done
  unset i
fi

if [ "$PS1" ]; then
  if [ "$BASH" ]; then
    PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '
    if [ -f /etc/bash.bashrc ]; then
	. /etc/bash.bashrc
    fi
  else
    if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then
      PS1='# '
    else
      PS1='$ '
    fi
  fi
fi

umask 022

Code above is from Hardy's.

[prshah]

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

What happens of you only use less without piping?

Can you also check your permissions for /bin and /usr/bin as well as the commands themselves?

ls -ld /bin
ls -ld /usr/bin
ls -l `which grep`
ls -l `which less`

[wdaniels]

Does:

history |grep lib

(i.e. without the space after the pipe character) work?

This can sometimes be a locale problem in that the space character sent by your locale settings in X is not interpreted as whitespace (or something like that). What are your language settings?

[ingeva]

Hi Ingeva,
The errors mean that the commands (grep and less) cannot be located on the filesystem.

I'm sorry, you are right.
grep and less are SO standard that they should just always be installed,
so I assumed that they were just used wrongly. My mistake.

[vnuckcha]

Could you check your /etc/profile file if we are similar with what I'm posting below:

# /etc/profile: system-wide .profile file for the Bourne shell (sh(1))
# and Bourne compatible shells (bash(1), ksh(1), ash(1), ...).

if [ -d /etc/profile.d ]; then
  for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    if [ -r $i ]; then
      . $i
    fi
  done
  unset i
fi

if [ "$PS1" ]; then
  if [ "$BASH" ]; then
    PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '
    if [ -f /etc/bash.bashrc ]; then
	. /etc/bash.bashrc
    fi
  else
    if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then
      PS1='# '
    else
      PS1='$ '
    fi
  fi
fi

umask 022

Code above is from Hardy's.

Hi,

There is no difference from the /etc/profile listing you gave and the one on my computer.

I did a diff and compared line by line manually

Kind Regards