CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
user3735178
user3735178

Reputation: 149

Bash unexpected token near <<< here document

My terminal's character encoding is set to UTF-8. I went into the terminal program's Profile Preferences / Compatibility and clicked Reset Compatibility Options to Defaults.

I ssh'd to another machine using this terminal window.

I ran vi and typed in the following script in by hand (to avoid any unexpected hidden special characters) on that machine. Then I ran it and got syntax error near unexpected token <<<

#!/bin/bash

cd "$1"

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  printf 'cd fail'
  exit 1
fi

while read name
do
  printf 'item: [%s]\n' "$name"
done <<< "$(stat -t ./* | awk -F' ' '{print $13 " " $1}' | sort -r | awk -F' ' '{print $2}')"

This test machine has /bin/bash ... also /bin/sh is a link to /bin/bash. /bin/bash --version says GNU bash, version 2.05a.0(3)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)

I can disconnect from that test machine and in the same terminal window type the same script by hand on my machine and it runs fine. On my machine, /bin/bash --version says GNU bash, version 4.3.42(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

What's causing the syntax error on the test machine? Is <<< not supported in that earlier version of Bash?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 62

Answers (1)

Thomas Dickey
Thomas Dickey

Reputation: 54495

sure - that feature came in with 2.05b which git shows as July 2002, while 2.05a was November 2001.

bash's developer doesn't put dates in the changelog, but with some patience you can see the changes in git CHANGES

Upvotes: 1

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