LinuxQuestions.org - Syntax Error when calculating an average

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Syntax Error when calculating an average

SO here is a question on my homework:
Write a program to continue taking numbers from the user until he/she enters a null value. When so, the program should show the average value.

So here is the code I used

Code:

 1 echo "Keep entering numbers until you want to stop"

  2 read num

  3 total=0

  4 count=0

  5 while [ -n "$num" ]

  6 do

  7 read num

  8 let total=$total+$num

  9 let count=$count+1

 10 done

 11 let average=$total%$count

 12 echo "The average of all those numbers is "$average

I keep getting a Syntax error on line 8 for some reason... I know its probably a silly newb mistake, but what am I doing wrong here??? Thank you!

You can use 'set -xv' at the top of your script to debug thus

Code:

#!/bin/bash

set -xv



<your code here>

Anyway, as per this page, http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internal.html#LETREF, you don't need the '$' sign.

Next time show the exact error msg you get.

Useful links
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

my error message was as such:

Code:

./average: line 8: let: total=20+: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "+")

this was after passing the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6

If you add my debug suggestion, you'll see the problem/solution.