Git Bash bash: open: command not found

bash: open: command not found

This error message is trying to tell you that there is no such command called "open". There's nothing wrong with the README.md.

• OSX - open is a universal opener in OSX
• Linux - has xdg-open
• Windows - use start

But you don't need to take the instructions literally. It's not really important how you open the readme file. You can open it with the less command to view the content inside the terminal, or you can open it with notepad for editing in a text editor.

open is a linux specific command for Git Bash

You can access your file using the start command like start filename.extension this will open your file using Notepad if you are using Windows 10.

To access file with some text editor you can simply write the command as start texteditorname filename.extension.

To access file with VS Code just simply type start code filename.extension.

To access file with ATOM just simply type start atom filename.extension.

I had the same problem at first when I started using Git Bash in my Windows computer. I wanted to open a folder on my Desktop. I specified the current directory, which was cd Desktop/test and then I gave the command open . to open the 'test' file, and I received bash: open: command not found. I searched through the internet to find a way to open the file, and then finally I tried this one and it worked.

Solution :

1. Specify the root directory of the file -> cd Desktop
2. use "start" keyword and give the file name that you want to open -> start test

As described in the first Answer, I used "start" to open my Text File and it works.

This is happening because file opening varies in command line from os to os

so if you are in

1. mac os - try open in terminal
2. Linux - has xdg-open
3. Windows - use start in terminal

this will probably fix your problem, if not then try to open that .gitignore file in vscode

I am using Ubuntu and instead of using open or start, use explorer.exe if you're trying to open in the browser.

explorer.exe filename

for example:

explorer.exe index.html

You could also just try it without "start". In my case, "subl ." and "code ." both work to open the cwd in the respective editors. I assume it is just an alias for "subl start"/"code start".

you can add a polyfill for 'open' to your .bashrc or otherwise define/import it

#!/usr/bin/env bash # cross platform polyfill for 'open' (to open a file in the associated app, e.g. the browser) # @usage `open http://example.com` declare -F open &>/dev/null || { if command -v open &>/dev/null; then open(){ command open "$@"; } elif command -v xdg-open &>/dev/null; then open(){ xdg-open "$@"; } elif command -v start &>/dev/null; then open(){ start "$@"; } elif [[ "$OSTYPE" == "cygwin" || "$OSTYPE" == "msys" || "$OSTYPE" == "win32" ]]; then open(){ if [[ "$1" =~ ^https?:// ]]; then cmd.exe /c start "$@"; else explorer.exe "$@"; fi; } else open(){ echo "please manually open $@"; } fi }