Creating a bash script which understands paths to files
 

Hi

I am new to linux and I am trying to create a script which will eventually be put in a cron job. However I'm not having much luck with any script at the mo (even this basic example as it can't find the files I'm referencing).

Even a simple cat command doesn't seem to work once in my script.

From the command line:

cat filename

work fines and displays the contents of the file to the screen

As soon as I create a test.sh script (which I have made executable) with the following lines it stops working:

#!/bin/bash
cat filename
echo hello world

and I get an output which says:

: No such file or directory
hello world

From this I assume it is running the script alright as it prints the 'hello world' part.

I have tried giving the full path to the file as well e.g.:

#!/bin/bash
cat /home/some/directory/filename
echo hello world

but it still can't find the file...

Where am I going wrong?

Please help me - its driving me nuts

What is the actual output from the script? if your path starts with a / then it is absolute so will always work if other factors like file ownerships and permissions are not conflicting.

sh-3.00$ bash reset_demo_db.sh
: No such file or directoryweb/demo_reset/tsweb_zendemo.sql
Hello World
Wish this would work
sh-3.00$

is the exact copy from the console when the script has exactly this in it:

#!/bin/bash
cat /hsphere/local/home/tsweb/demo_reset/tsweb_zendemo.sql
echo Hello World
echo Wish this would work

and I am logged in as the owner of both the script and sql file

It is all case sensitive so make sure that is ok, and that the path is correct

ok, so what does say?

[root@cp demo_reset]# ls -l /hsphere/local/home/tsweb/demo_reset/tsweb_zendemo.sql
-rw-r--r-- 1 tsweb tsweb 586027 May 17 22:49 /hsphere/local/home/tsweb/demo_reset/tsweb_zendemo.sql

This error:
doesn't seem to match this line
If that error was for that line (as displayed) it would read:
cat: /hsphere/local/home/tsweb/demo_reset/tsweb_zendemo.sql: No such file or directory

I'm wondering if there are some unprintable garbage characters that are causing weird problems. I would try deleting the whole line and retyping it. I know it sounds stupid -- but I've had similar issues that where solved by retyping.

Thankyou so much bc8o8

You were right - started a completely new file and it worked fine - weird. How do I avoid that in the future?

What text editor were you using? I don't think I've seen the problem in Vim or Emacs, but I could be wrong. Typically it happens in lower quality editors when keystrokes are hit that don't have a printable ASCII equivalent. It's sort of like when you're in a terminal and you start seeing characters like ^[A -- except the editor doesn't know how to handle them. The best way to avoid them is to not hit those keystrokes :) a more realistic solution is to use a better editor just in case you do accidentally type them.

Glad I could help!