AppleScript : error "sh: lame: command not found" number 127

Question

I am trying to create an AppleScript with commands below. An issue I am having is there is an error at the third line. I have no problem using the lame command in the terminal directly. In addition, lame is not a native Mac utility; I installed it on my own. Does anybody have a solution?

do shell script "cd ~/Downloads"

do shell script "say -f ~/Downloads/RE.txt -o ~/Downloads/recording.aiff"

do shell script "lame -m m ~/Downloads/recording.aiff ~/Downloads/recording.mp3"

-- error "sh: lame: command not found" number 127

do shell script "rm recording.aiff RE.txt"

Answer 1

To complement Paul R's helpful answer:

The thing to note is that do shell script - regrettably - does NOT see the same $PATH as shells created by Terminal.app - a notable absence is /usr/local/bin.

On my OS X 10.9.3 system, running do shell script "echo $PATH" yields merely:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

There are various ways around this:

• Use the full path to executables, as in Paul's solution.

• Manually prepend/append /usr/local/bin, where many non-system executables live, to the $PATH - worth considering if you invoke multiple executables in a single do shell script command; e.g.:

do shell script "export PATH=\"/usr/local/bin:$PATH\"
 cd ~/Downloads
 say -f ~/Downloads/RE.txt -o ~/Downloads/recording.aiff
 lame -m m ~/Downloads/recording.aiff ~/Downloads/recording.mp3
 rm recording.aiff RE.txt"

Note how the above use a single do shell script command with multiple commands in a single string - commands can be separated by newlines or, if on the same line, with ;.
This is more efficient than multiple invocations, though adding error handling both inside the script code and around the do shell script command is advisable.

• To get the same $PATH that interactive shells see (except additions made in your bash profile), you can invoke eval $(/usr/libexec/path_helper -s); as the first statement in your command string.

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Other important considerations with do shell script:

• bash is invoked as sh, which results in changes in behavior, most notably:
  • process substitution (<(...)) is not available
  • echo by default accepts no options and interprets escape sequences such as \n.
  • other, subtle changes in behavior; see http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-POSIX-Mode.html
  • You could address these issues manually by prepending shopt -uo posix; shopt -u xpg_echo; to your command string.

• The locale is set to the generic "C" locale instead of to your system's; to fix that, manually prepend export LANG='" & user locale of (system info) & ".UTF-8' to your command string.

• No startup files (profiles) are read; this is not surprising, because the shell created is a noninteractive (non-login) shell, but sometimes it's handy to load one's profile by manually by prepending . ~/.bash_profile to the command string; note, however, that this makes your AppleScript less portable.

do shell script command reference: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2065/_index.html