a simple bash command causing "bad variable name"

johnhelen · 02-18-2010, 09:09 PM

Hello all

When I run this command from shell, it runs ok

Quote:

export REVS=`svn info svn+ssh://svn.myone.ca/var/svn/story/trunk/lib |grep 'Last Changed Rev:'| awk -F: '{print $2}'`

However when I save it into a file called test.sh (of course, I chmod it with +x), I got error "export: 2: bad variable name"

Here is the file:

Quote:

#!/bin/bash
export REVS=`svn info svn+ssh://svn.myone.ca/var/svn/story/trunk/lib |grep 'Last Changed Rev:'| awk -F: '{print $2}'`

I am using ubuntu
Many thanks
john

meetscott · 02-18-2010, 10:10 PM

That ought to work. I tried in on Slackware. Picked it apart step by step. It all looks good.

I am using bash. Verify that is the shell you are using. If it is, I see no difference. In fact, I was able to properly set the environment variable, $REVS, with the revision on my own svn repo.

To do that invoke the parent shell:

Code:

. ./test.sh

Then:

Code:

echo $REVS

Maybe Ubuntu is doing something different? Are they using dash instead of bash now?

Code:

echo $SHELL

It should output /bin/bash for bash and /bin/dash for dash. Maybe dash handles it differently? I'm grasping at straws here but perhaps even when you are forcing the #!/bin/bash maybe it is still picking up dash because that is installed and bash is not? I don't know, maybe dash would work anyway. This really looks okay, anyone with Ubuntu that can verify?

chrism01 · 02-18-2010, 10:21 PM

If you just copy-n-paste that (dual) 'line' into an editor, it will silently insert a hard newline between the lines. Use shift-j (in vim) to re-join into one line.

meetscott · 02-18-2010, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

If you just copy-n-paste that (dual) 'line' into an editor, it will silently insert a hard newline between the lines.

So? How does joining the lines change his intent? Or more importantly the shell interpretation? The #!/bin/bash should be on a line on its own. What am I not understanding here?

Did I just miss the joke? Okay, ha ha.

Quote:

Use shift-j (in vim) to re-join into one line.

It must be, because you are giving simple, irrelevant editor command lessons :-)

vinaytp · 02-18-2010, 11:03 PM

Hello johnhelen,

Can you please paste the output of following ?

Code:

od -t c script.sh

As chrism01 mentioned, even I suspect there may be some new line character inserted in between.

johnhelen · 02-19-2010, 04:17 AM

The error happens only when I run with this command

sh test.sh

But it runs OK when I run with this command

./test.sh

I do not know why they are different

Thanks
john

deadeyes · 02-19-2010, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnhelen

The error happens only when I run with this command

sh test.sh

But it runs OK when I run with this command

./test.sh

I do not know why they are different

Thanks
john

I am not sure but "export" is not a tool.
It is a builtin of Bash.

So this should work:
bash test.sh
I would expec "sh" does not know this.
Just test the bash test.sh command

And see if it works.
If it does, then this is normal behaviour and the above explains your error

johnhelen · 02-20-2010, 01:21 AM

Yes, it works well with bash command