# Rails on a Mac, so strange (to me) behavior **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [June 7, 2007, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211 "2007-06-07T16:55:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/1 "2007-06-07T16:55:39Z")
I have built Ruby from source, installed gems & rails on a MacBook pro. I installed the source for a working Rails application in a directory /rails\_apps. I cd to the application directory under rails apps and in the terminal I enter: script/server Terminal responds: : No such file or directory sudo script/server provides the same response ls -la script/server returns: -rwxr-xr-x 1 pogo admin 98 Nov 13 2006 script/server I have all of 2 weeks experience on a Mac, which probably explains the basic problem. Can someone advise? ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/2 "2007-06-07T17:03:55Z")
Mark wrote: > I have built Ruby from source, installed gems & rails on a MacBook > pro. I installed the source for a working Rails application in a > directory /rails\_apps. I cd to the application directory under rails > apps and in the terminal I enter: > > script/server > > Terminal responds: > : No such file or directory > > sudo script/server provides the same response > ls -la script/server returns: > -rwxr-xr-x 1 pogo admin 98 Nov 13 2006 script/server > > I have all of 2 weeks experience on a Mac, which probably explains the > basic problem. Can someone advise? What does your path look like? (in terminal: printenv PATH). The ./ directory is not in their by default, so you would have to type something like ./script/server. To save yourself the trouble of having to do that each time, just add ./ to your path in your shell’s rc file: In bash (and zsh, I believe): export PATH=.:$PATH In tcsh: setenv PATH .:$PATH ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/3 "2007-06-07T17:11:46Z")
I’ve run into problems installing on OS X from source too. I found it much easier to install MAMP and Locomotive. [http://locomotive.raaum.org/](http://locomotive.raaum.org/) [http://www.mamp.info/en/home/](http://www.mamp.info/en/home/) MAMP launches Apache and MySQL and Locomotive launches Ruby on Rails. Both reside in the Applications folder with your other apps. The other advantage is that you can save your projects in the Documents folder. For me, that style has been easier to manage than the command-line. While I’m comfortable with the command line, I’m not a pro. Using this combination of applications, you’ll be up and running within a half hour. Otherwise, this site has good notes on getting Ruby on Rails running via the command line: > **[Dan Benjamin](https://danbenjamin.com)** > > Dan Benjamin's personal website. ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/4 "2007-06-07T17:13:47Z")
On Jun 7, 2007, at 10:55 AM, Mark wrote: > sudo script/server provides the same response > ls -la script/server returns: > -rwxr-xr-x 1 pogo admin 98 Nov 13 2006 script/server > > I have all of 2 weeks experience on a Mac, which probably explains the > basic problem. Can someone advise? Try: ruby script/server Then, if that works, look at the #! line at the top of the file (head -1 script/server) Mine is: $ head -1 script/server #!/usr/bin/env ruby If yours is something else, then add a line that says where to find your ruby. (particularly if the first line is not a #! unless you just want to explicitly use “ruby script/whatever …” Also, your ruby is where: which ruby says it is based on your path. -Rob Rob B. [http://agileconsultingllc.com](http://agileconsultingllc.com) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/5 "2007-06-08T19:18:53Z")
- Joshua B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) [2007-06-07 09:05]: > What does your path look like? (in terminal: printenv PATH). The ./ > directory is not in their by default, so you would have to type > something like ./script/server. To save yourself the trouble of having > to do that each time, just add ./ to your path in your shell’s rc file: You don’t need to use ./ when you already have a directory name (‘script’ in this case) in the command. ‘script/server’ is the same as ‘./script/server’. You only need ./ if you are already in the same directory as a command. ``` cd script ./server ``` Also, adding ‘.’ to your PATH is generally a bad idea. You might end up running a command you didn’t expect. ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/6 "2007-06-08T19:23:33Z")
Grant Hollingworth wrote: > You don’t need to use ./ when you already have a directory name > (‘script’ in this case) in the command. > > ‘script/server’ is the same as ‘./script/server’. > > You only need ./ if you are already in the same directory as a command. > > ``` > cd script > ./server > > ``` > > Also, adding ‘.’ to your PATH is generally a bad idea. You might end up > running a command you didn’t expect. Yeah…I’m not really sure what I was thinking (probably shouldn’t post before morning coffee…). As for the wisdom in adding ‘.’ to PATH, my rule of thumb has always been NEVER for root/superuser accounts, normally no for user accounts, but for dev accounts (where I’ll be compiling a lot of test code into directories not in PATH) it can be a bit of a time-saver. Oddly, though, I still end up typing ‘./my\_ruby\_prog.rb’ half the time… Cheers (and hope everything for the OP is working now!), Josh ---
**Author:** ![mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/e9c0ed/32.png) [@mark](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mark)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-on-a-mac-so-strange-to-me-behavior/106211/7 "2007-06-07T17:31:28Z")
Tony Thomas wrote: > I’ve run into problems installing on OS X from source too. I found it > much easier to install MAMP and Locomotive. > > [http://locomotive.raaum.org/](http://locomotive.raaum.org/) > [http://www.mamp.info/en/home/](http://www.mamp.info/en/home/) Yeah, I’ll throw my hat in with that suggestion. In fact, for the current Rails app I’m developing, I’ve got a flash drive with locomotive, textmate ([http://macromates.com/](http://macromates.com/)), css edit ([Espresso — The Web Editor for Mac](http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/)), and my rails directory on it. If you change your dev environment to use SQLite3 then you can run (and showcase!) your app from any mac (honestly, I don’t know why anyone would go to the trouble of setting up a full blown MySQL DB just for development…testing and deployment I can understand, but for dev sqlite3 is just so attractive). Really, I can’t say enough about this solution! In fact, if you throw one of the all-in-one rail packages for Widows or Linux on there, then you can develop anywhere.