"rst2html: command not found" after installing docutils?

Question

I've installed docutils on my Mac OS system following the docutils instructions.

I've also done:

$ sudo cp tools/buildhtml.py tools/rst2html.py /usr/local/bin

However, if I open a command line and type rst2html, I get 'command not found'.

If I type rst2html.py, there's no problem, so the Python file itself is on my path.

How do I get my system to recognize rst2html as a valid command?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I don't know about mac, but generally in a Unix system the file extension isn't implied. Indeed a file name extension rarely has any special meaning at all. However there are lot of Unix tricks to help you, perhaps creating a symbolic link:

$ sudo ln -s rst2html.py /usr/local/bin/rst2html

Answer 2

When you type the command rst2html on the command line, it's going to look for a program called rst2html (not rst2html.somethingorother) in the directories in your PATH. If you want rst2html to work, you need a file named rst2html. There are several ways to do this:

1. Rename the program. There's no actual need for the .py extension, as the system knows it's a Python script because of its shebang line.

   sudo mv /usr/local/bin/rst2html.py /usr/local/bin/rst2html
   

2. Hard-link the program. You can have the program listed in /usr/local/bin under two different names, rst2html.py and rst2html, and either one can be used to launch it.

   sudo ln /usr/local/bin/rst2html.py /usr/local/bin/rst2html
   

3. Symbolic-link the program. Similar to hard-linking, except that only one is the "real" file, the other is just a unix-style alias. This may be a bit easier to manage than hard-linking, because if you ever install an updated version, the link will automatically use the new version (while with a hard link, you'd need to update the link manually).

   sudo ln -s rst2html.py /usr/local/bin/rst2html
   

Personally, I'd just rename it (option 1), but either of the other options should work fine as well.