"cannot execute binary file" error in python

Question

I keep getting the following error:

$ ./test.py
-bash: ./test.py: cannot execute binary file

when trying to run the following file in python via cygwin:

#!usr/bin/python
with open("input.txt") as inf:
    try:
        while True:
            latin = inf.next().strip()
            gloss = inf.next().strip()
            trans = inf.next().strip()
            process(latin, gloss, trans)
            inf.next()    # skip blank line
    except StopIteration:
        # reached end of file
        pass
from itertools import chain

def chunk(s):
    """Split a string on whitespace or hyphens"""
    return chain(*(c.split("-") for c in s.split()))

def process(latin, gloss, trans):
    chunks = zip(chunk(latin), chunk(gloss))

How do I fix this??

---

After taking on the below suggestions, still getting the same error.

If this helps, I tried

$ python ./test.py

and got

$ python ./test.py
  File "./test.py", line 1
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xff' in file ./test.py on line 1, but no encoding     declared; see http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0263.html for details

Answer 1

There is a problem. You are missing the '/' in front of usr in #!usr/bin/python. Your line should look like this.

#!/usr/bin/python

Answer 2

In addition to protecting the file executable, #!/usr/bin/python may not work. At least it has never worked for me on Red Hat or Ubuntu Linux. Instead, I have put this in my Python files:

#!/usr/bin/env python

I don't know how this works on Windows platforms.