diff --git a/HSBencher/Internal/Utils.hs b/HSBencher/Internal/Utils.hs
--- a/HSBencher/Internal/Utils.hs
+++ b/HSBencher/Internal/Utils.hs
@@ -143,12 +143,15 @@
 
 -- | Runs a command through the OS shell and returns the first line of
 -- output. (Ignore exit code and stderr.)
+--
+-- If the command does not return any output, this function returns the empty string.
 runSL :: String -> IO String
 runSL cmd = do
   lns <- runLines cmd
   case lns of
     h:_ -> return h
-    []  -> error$ "runSL: expected at least one line of output for command "++cmd
+    []  -> return ""
+--    []  -> error$ "runSL: expected at least one line of output for command "++cmd
 
 
 
diff --git a/hsbencher.cabal b/hsbencher.cabal
--- a/hsbencher.cabal
+++ b/hsbencher.cabal
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 
 name:                hsbencher
-version:             1.20.0.2
+version:             1.20.0.3
 ----------------------------------------
 -- Detailed CHANGELOG:
 ----------------------------------------
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@
 -- 1.19     : Change the semantics of naked runtime args to conjunction, not disjunction.
 -- 1.19.1   : Additional change to allow filtering of benchmarks by BenchSpace as well.
 -- 1.20     : add --bindir
+-- 1.20.0.3 : bugfix, #71, runSL change
 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------