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up vote 11 down vote favorite
2

I am writing this simple bash script as follows.

#!/bin/bash

array=( /home/abc/Downloads/something.bat /home/abc/Downloads/smb.conf )
echo ${array[@]}

I expected it to print all the names of the files in the array. But I get this error instead:

test.sh: 3: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

If I change the declaration of array to 

array = {/home/abc/Downloads/something.bat /home/abc/Downloads/smb.conf}

this error goes away but I still have new errors

test.sh: 3: array: not found
test.sh: 4: Bad substitution

How can I resolve this issue? This is my first time in shell programming so I am unable to fix the issues myself.

RESOLVED:

I was executing it as sh test.sh but I forgot I had to execute it as bash test.sh

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closed as too localized by Jonathan Leffler, casperOne♦ Jun 14 '12 at 18:58

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, visit the help center.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
1  
That's not an associative array. It's a normal, numerically indexed array. –  Dennis Williamson Jun 14 '12 at 3:46
    
@DennisWilliamson Oh Ok. I will edit it –  user1357576 Jun 14 '12 at 3:57
1  
@user1357576: Post the solution as an answer and mark it accepted, don't edit it into the question. Also, don't edit the title to resolve it, the website will mark the question as solved when you accept an answer. –  Daenyth Jun 14 '12 at 4:01

3 Answers 3

up vote 0 down vote

Variable assignments can't have a space around the = sign:

array=( /a/b/  /c/d )
     ^--no spaces

are you sure?

marc@panic:~$ array =(a b)      
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('
marc@panic:~$ array= (a b)  
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('
marc@panic:~$ array = (a b)
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `('
marc@panic:~$ array=(a b)  
marc@panic:~$ echo ${array[1]}
b
share|improve this answer
    
No luck. I have removed the space still gives me the syntax error –  user1357576 Jun 14 '12 at 3:23
    
interestingly when I execute it directly on the terminal, it works. But when I use the same thing in a file, it doesn't! –  user1357576 Jun 14 '12 at 3:32
    
@user1357576: works fine here when I put the above into a file. Of course, the syntax error lines kill the script, but if it's just the final space-less assignment, it works fine. –  Marc B Jun 14 '12 at 3:38
1  
I know what I did wrong. I was executing it as sh test.sh and then it was throwing the error. When I executed it as ./test.sh it worked fine! –  user1357576 Jun 14 '12 at 3:50
    
Ah yes, sh is not alway 'sh'. On ubuntu 12.04, it's actually an alias for the 'dash' shell. –  Marc B Jun 14 '12 at 3:53
up vote 0 down vote

Pointer: Spaces are important with variable assignment in BASH. Don't use them before or after the equal sign.

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I understand that> I executed the very same commands directly on the terminal and it worked. BUT the same commands I put in test.sh and execute, they throw the error..Would you know why? –  user1357576 Jun 14 '12 at 3:34
    
@user1357576 From your comment above, it appears that you've learned the difference between sh and bash. sh is not guaranteed to be bash in some environments. In fact, sh is often linked to purely POSIX shells such as dash. –  Chad Walstrom Jun 14 '12 at 3:53
up vote 0 down vote

Are you using a DOS editor to create your script?

Bash etc shells, don't like CRLF pairs, just LF (or \r\n chars VS just plain \n char).

Put your script thru this test

cat -vet myScript.sh

Do you see '^M' chars at the end of lines? If so that is a dos file.

See if your system has dos2unix then use it like

dos2unix myScript.sh

Also, as several people have commented on it, please edit your original question to eliminate the spaces around your = signs in the assignments to array.

I hope this helps.

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