Can you guys post where your "sh" is pointing to please. Seems mine isn't correct if going by the posts on here.

It depends on what Distribution you are using, most /bin/sh should refer to bash, however for debian based distributions it should be /bin/dash (A debian specific shell, I believe based on ash)

Your "sh" symlink points to a shell called dash. You might want to remove that symlink and create a new one pointing to bash.

So does that mean that Ubuntu is set up incorrectly?

Shouldn't it default to the bash shell?

This is a bad idea. All sorts of things might break. Please don't do this.

@OP: The situation you have is "correct" for Debian based systems.

Yeah thought changing it would be a bad idea!!

So any ideas why I get errors and some dont? Seems to depend on what distro they are using now doesnt it??

For some people, sh is a link to /bin/bash and for the debianites its /bin/dash.

Dash is a debian-developed shell which is being used where the features of bash aren't needed, and speed and simplicity are. There's been warnings for a while that scripts with bashims need a /bin/bash shebang, not a /bin/sh.

So the difference is down to the fact that, even though they're invoking them the same way, some people are running , and others are running , and these are different shells.

hmm... OP used #!/bin/bash. I wonder why that didn't take effect.

because he was explicitly telling it to use 'sh' on the command line when he invoked it.

hm... i guess my understanding of the 'shebang' was incorrect. I always thought it was used to override whatever the invoking shell may be.

hey, this is the second new thing i have learned today.

Thanks.

Well looks like my little issue has become into a lesson. I shall make a note of this.