MacOS – how to run open -n applicaton name from command line

command linemacosterminal

I got these two lines that I want to run from a script file (on Yosemite 10.10.3). It works when running from terminal

CX_LICENSE=LS
open -n /Applications/Inspire\ Designer\ 10.0\ GA/Inspire\ Designer.app/

I saved these two lines in a file and named it run ID. -rwxr-xr-x@ 1 Administrator staff 89 20 Jul 17:34 runID

If I double click runID then I get new window with

Last login: Mon Jul 20 17:22:27 on ttys002
dsa-mac1:~ Administrator$ /Users/Administrator/Desktop/runID ; exit;
: command not foundr/Desktop/runID: line 1: 
/Users/Administrator/Desktop/runID: line 1: -n: command not found
logout

[Process completed]

any idea how to make runID work?

Best Answer

You're missing the initial line of your script file - the "shebang".

Put the following in your script file:

#!/bin/sh
CX_LICENSE=LS
open -n /Applications/Inspire\ Designer\ 10.0\ GA/Inspire\ Designer.app/

That should work - the file you had before did not have enough information to tell the operating system how to run your script. You want to run a set of shell commands, so you need to tell the operating system it's a shell script, which is done by including the #!/bin/sh as the first line of the script.

See this answer on Stack Overflow for more information.

Update

Just to confirm, I've just tested this script and it works fine:

#!/bin/sh
open -n /Custom\ Applications/MacVim.app

As correctly pointed out by @fd0, you should name the script <script>.tool or <script>.command for it to be executed from Finder (where <script> is a meaningful name for the script).

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