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bashterminalosx-elcapitanbindirname

"Invalid Argument: dirname" in Terminal

I noticed the issue when I first went to run

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

in macOS terminal (10.11.2) but this was returned

bash: /usr/bin/defaults: Invalid argument

I'm not sure what is going on with defaults, but I also have a similar issue with brew:

/bin/bash: /usr/bin/dirname: Invalid argument

I clearly broke something, but not sure how I did it or when it happened. This is causing all sorts of issues. Any thoughts on fixing it?

Solution

  • I reinstalled El Capitan from the recovery partition (restart holding command-R), and it solved the issue. My guess is that the xcode command tools were to blame.