Problem running .sh scripts on windows

Q&A
1

Hi all,

I have been using an older GMT version on Ubuntu for a couple of years and thought it would be cool to try and run the latest gmt version on windows.

I have downloaded and run the installer for gmt6 and seems to have successfully installed gmt6 under C/programs. All good so far, double clicking on bat files (the examples) they seem to run just fine.

I am used to running gmt scripts in a linux environment so I downloaded and installed mingw64 and msys2 which from what I’ve read will allow me to run the scripts like in linux (I’m not very good with these things). I have installed mingw64 and msys2 in C/Apps

The problem is, when I launch the msys terminal, then navigate to the gmt directory and type “./ex03.sh” it will spit out several times:

$ ./ex03.sh
./ex03.sh: line 21: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 22: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 25: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 26: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 31: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 32: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 33: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 35: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 37: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 41: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 41: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 44: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 44: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 46: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 47: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 48: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 49: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 50: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 51: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 52: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 53: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 54: gmt: command not found
./ex03.sh: line 55: gmt: command not found

It’s like it doesn’t recognise gmt as a program at all. It’s clearly reading the file.
I did some more digging and I see some suggestions about adding the path under System>advanced system settings>Edit Environment variables but I see gmt is already there as c:\programs\gmt6\bin and this seems correct (?)

What’s going on, why doesn’t it recognise gmt commands? Is it looking in the wrong place?

2

Check out https://docs.generic-mapping-tools.org/6.0/migrating.html and decide on a course of action.

3

Thanks for the quick reply Paul. Unfortunately I’m stumped. Navigating to tools and running the script says:

./gmt_links.sh: line 28: gmt: command not found
./gmt_links.sh: line 31: gmt: command not found
Link for module minmax: Absent
Link for module gmt2rgb: Absent
Link for module gmtstitch: Absent
Link for module gmtdp: Absent
Link for module grdreformat: Absent
Link for module ps2raster: Absent

Then tried ./‘gmt_links.sh’ create

and got:

./gmt_links.sh: line 28: gmt: command not found
./gmt_links.sh: line 31: gmt: command not found
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘minmax’: No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘gmt2rgb’: No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘gmtstitch’: No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘gmtdp’: No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘grdreformat’: No such file or directory
ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘ps2raster’: No such file or directory

even just typing gmt --version in the terminal yields nothing. I must have done something fundamentally wrong. Was I not meant to install from the windows executable if I’m planning to run it with msys? Am I meant to install it some other way?

4

I don’t know anything about msys etc, but sounds like you need to add the installation path for gmt to your PATH setting. It cannot find gmt and hence nothing can work.

5

I think the problem is that bash, like some others, is very picky and wants that your shell scripts have the executable mode set on.
The Github bash is less picky.

6

Thank you both but the problem persists. I have checked my environment variables and gmt is definitely among them (paths)

I tried chmod 777 as well as chmod +x to make script executable but made no difference

I’ll do some reading on environment variables because right now I have no idea what I’m doing

7

Sounds like just installing git for windows which comes with bash is the best solution than futzing around with mingw etc.

8

Yes. But as a last attempt try changing the shell script to Unix EOL

9

I know we are one year down the line but Jesus this git for windows just…worked. I don’t know why I didn’t do this at the time. I had spent days and days mucking around. Thanks Paul

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