[: too many arguments

[Harry Putnam]

Marcus Schuetz <biped at comcast.net> writes:

> Harry Putnam wrote:
>> Marcus Schuetz <biped at comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>>Recently I noticed getting the message "[: too many arguments" when I
>>>use a terminal under gnome (gnome-terminal or aterm) when using
>>>external (not shell) commands (less, etc.). I tried several shells
>>>(bash, tcsh, zsh) and I get this with all of them. I had no luck
>>>tracking down the origin of this message. Anybody else seeing this?
>>>How about a solution?
>> It wasn't clear to me what you mean by `when I use'.  Do you mean
>> when
>> you start a terminal?
>> Can you explain exaclty what you do that brings on the error message
>> please?
>>
> It's the first output I see when starting a terminal may it be
> gnome-terminal, xterm or aterm. I also see it whenever I call less:
>
> [: too many arguments
> marcus has logged on :0 from local.
> root has logged on pts/0 from :0.0.
> marcus has logged on pts/1 from :0.0.
> [(20:18) :: HAL9001 :: ~]>  less blah.txt
> [: too many arguments
> blah.txt: No such file or directory
> Exit 1
> [(20:18) :: HAL9001 :: ~]>

Sorry I'm being such a hard head and most likely won't really be able
to help either, but still by `starting' do you mean typing 
 `gnome-terminal' at a command line prompt.  Or are you clicking an
 Icon or something.

Do you see anything odd typing:
  echo $PATH
or in the output of
   env

at a command line prompt? 
 
If you type ` echo "$PATH" >some_file'
             `less some_file'
at a command line prompt...what do you see?

The above output looks like a login shell.. yes?.  Seems like it would
follow then that this is something in your init files like .bash_profile
.bashrc  /etc/profile /etc/bashrc.  etc.