Why do the file that was created using git bash command cannot be opened w/ jupyter notebook?

Hi there,

I’m a very fresh user in this jupyter notebook world and I was wondering why I’m not able to open a file that was created using git bash command ($ touch file.ipynb). Everytime that I try to open the file in jupyter notebook lab I got this message:

“Unreadable Notebook: C: … \file.ipynb NotJSONError(“Notebook does not appear to be JSON: ‘’…”)”

(The reason for be me using the git bash command is that I’m also learning how to use it lol.)

Thanks in advance.

The message is telling you that for Jupyter notebook to open a file as a notebook it expects the underlying text file to be structured as json. The touch command only creates a file named what you provide with the timestamp of when you called it. There are no contents to the file a bash touch command makes. Hence, Jupyter notebook cannot open it and provides you with the feedback '“Notebook does not appear to be JSON: '.

The easiest way to start an entirely new Jupyter notebook, open the program and use the File menu to create a new notebook. If you need to do it programmatically from the command line there are ways, for example see here. (There’s probably an even easier way to do it at the command line that isn’t coming to me right now.)

1 Like

Thank you for answering me @fomightez , I think I understand the problem!