# Question regarding #MG5
**URL:** https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176
**Category:** Challenges
**Tags:** challenge:shell
**Created:** [June 23, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176 "2026-06-23T20:26:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HadiSaleemi666](https://forum.codecrafters.io/u/HadiSaleemi666)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176/1 "2026-06-23T20:26:27Z")
Hello, hope everyone’s doing well. I have a question regarding #MG5. I’m currently working on a windows device and I realized after testing that the code requires the answer to be in a posix format? because when I attempt to run my code on my own device it only works if I add the .exe extension, but that means the tests dont pass but without it, the tests do pass.
Here is my entire code:
```python
import sys
import os
def getFirstWordEndIndex(command):
index = command.find(" ")
index = index + 1
return index
def main():
# TODO: Uncomment the code below to pass the first stage
builtinCommands = ["echo", "type", "exit"]
while True:
sys.stdout.write("$ ")
command = input()
index = getFirstWordEndIndex(command)
if command == "exit":
break
elif "echo" in command[:index]:
print(command[index:])
elif "type" in command[:index]:
if command[index:] in builtinCommands:
print(f"{command[index:]} is a shell builtin")
else:
system_path = os.environ.get("PATH")
command = command[index:]
directories = system_path.split(os.pathsep)
found = False
for directory in directories:
if (
os.path.exists(directory)
and command in os.listdir(directory)
and os.access(f"{directory}{os.path.sep}{command}", os.X_OK)
):
found = True
print(f"{command} is {directory}{os.path.sep}{command}")
break
if not found:
print(f"{command}: not found")
else:
print(f"{command}: command not found")
if __name__ == " __main__":
main()
```
(Yes I know my code isn’t great lol)
So I suppose my question is, is there a way to generalize it so that it works on any OS? Because im not sure a function exists to figure out the exact extension of an executable for each OS and I figured out how I could use os.pathsep and os.path.sep to get around the different delimeters but beyond that I’m a little lost.
---
### Author:  [@andy1li](https://forum.codecrafters.io/u/andy1li)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2026, 9:11pm UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176/4 "2026-06-23T21:11:13Z")
Hey @HadiSaleemi666, our test runners run on Linux, so Windows-specific behavior (like `.exe` extensions) won’t match what the tester expects.
I’d recommend using [WSL](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install) for local development and testing. That will give you a Linux environment that’s much closer to what runs on CodeCrafters and should make debugging these path-related issues much easier.
---
### Author:  [@HadiSaleemi666](https://forum.codecrafters.io/u/HadiSaleemi666)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2026, 4:37am UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176/6 "2026-06-24T04:37:36Z")
Thats fair, though I suppose my question was geared more towards whether you could make the solution OS-agnostic. but I suppose this answer also answers that anyhow.
Thanks for the quick reply!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forum.codecrafters.io/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2026, 4:38am UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/question-regarding-mg5/16176/7 "2026-06-29T04:38:04Z")
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