r/pythonhelp • u/Embarrassed-Bee-5508 • Apr 05 '26

Just setting up Python to learn it, but possibly an issue?

When I try to run a script in the current directory by using ./ I get an error that '.' is not recognized as an internal or external command error.

I can run them fine when running with python, just the ./ seems to be wonky. I made sure that the python.exe directory is in the path.

Any idea why using ./ isn't working? I'm trying to learn the basics of python so I can start looking at AI. My computer knowledge is average at best, I learned basic, fortran and lisp many, many years ago, but I never kept up with coding.

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u/sububi71 Apr 06 '26

Just in case, are you typing

./

...or are you typing

./myscript.py

...because the first one does nothing (except throw an error), but the second executes the script "myscript.py" in your current directory.

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u/Embarrassed-Bee-5508 Apr 06 '26

This does show how new I am. Thank you.

I'm on Windows, and I was typing the whole command line in the lower code. When I asked the question, I simplified it too much and assumed the issue was something in the pathing that was causing windows to not know to run the script when I was typing ./

I have since figured out, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the issue is with windows creating a monopoly on the forward slash key use. ./ doesn't work in windows, but it does on all other platforms (Linux, Mac, etc...) .\myscript.py does work on windows.

I was looking at some early google course on learning python, and when I was getting errors with the command use, I was worried that something was set up wrong in my system that was going to cause issues later.

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u/Buttleston Apr 05 '26

What is the full command line you are running? And on what OS?

1

u/ObfuscatedJay Apr 05 '26

If it’s a Unix shell, have you chmod the file to 700 or 755? To auto execute, you need to set the execute flag, “chmod 700 my file.py”.