gpg --some-command returns "WARNING: no command supplied. Trying to guess ..."

Hello,

I am getting the message:

gpg: WARNING: no command supplied. Trying to guess what you mean …
gpg: Go ahead and type your message …

When entering some commands.

Example 1)

>gpg --interactive
gpg: WARNING: no command supplied.  Trying to guess what you mean ...
gpg: Go ahead and type your message ...

Example 2)

>gpg --log-file path\filename.log
gpg: WARNING: no command supplied.  Trying to guess what you mean ...
gpg: Go ahead and type your message ...

I learned about these commands on http://manpages.org/gpg2

Other commands work as expected

Example 1)

> gpg --version
gpg (GnuPG) 2.2.28
libgcrypt 1.8.8
Copyright (C) 2021 g10 Code GmbH
License GNU GPL-3.0-or-later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Home: C:/somepath/gnupg
Supported algorithms:
Pubkey: RSA, ELG, DSA, ECDH, ECDSA, EDDSA
Cipher: IDEA, 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH,
    CAMELLIA128, CAMELLIA192, CAMELLIA256
Hash: SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SHA224
Compression: Uncompressed, ZIP, ZLIB, BZIP2

Example 2)

> gpg --verify .\gpg4win-3.1.16.exe.sig .\2gpg4win-3.1.16.exe
gpg: Signature made 6/11/2021 9:04:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time
gpg:                using RSA key 13E3CE81AFEA6F683E466E0D42D876082688DA1A
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key
gpg: Signature made 6/11/2021 9:04:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time
gpg:                using RSA key 5B80C5754298F0CB55D8ED6ABCEF7E294B092E28
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

Could I get some feedback on how to use these?

P.S. Some environment information below:

OS: Windows 10
CLI: PowerShell

Hi Veronica,

a detailed description of how to use the command line interface of GnuPG is
https://gnupg.org/documentation/manuals/gnupg/Invoking-GPG.html

(The manpage on http://manpages.org/gpg2 has only some parts and maybe out of date.)

To your question, " --interactive" and “–log-file” are options, not commands. Otpions modify the behaviour of the command, but are not a command in itself. So GnuPG tries to guess the command, which in case when there is no input file given means --decrypt from the interactive command line. :wink:

The manual linked above has all the technical details.

Best Regards,
Bernhard

Yes Bernhard; I now see that actual commands are working.

Thank you