Head scratcher - bash script returns error only once
 

This snippet
returns this to stdout:but only in one script. Almost every other interactive bash script I have used that snippet in do not return such a message. Am I missing something?

Carver
(Whole script is attached)

Your 'if' has no test included, ie the word 'test' or [[]] seem to be missing, hence the 'if' is testing the output of the command returned by $item.

As per your previous posts, the reason for the 'if' and the setting of IFS still make no sense to me, because I have still never seen a file that uses a backspaced newline as its delimiter.

I think the error is being generated by the following test, not the read itself.

Use set -xv at the top of your script to see what it is trying to do with your input.

-- @grail faster than I, as usual!

is syntactically incorrect in your shell script, but I don't know if it is exactly the same....
such kind of errors can be found automatically on the page I already suggested: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...7/#post5665533. You do not need to wait any response, it will tell you the result immediately.
Also set -xv already mentioned several times, using it will speed up finding these issues too.

You clinched it.
 

Thanks

Please mark as SOLVED once you have a solution.