[SOLVED] Bash: ambiguous redirect

justmy2cents · 07-25-2017, 02:54 PM

Why does echo HelloWorld > * work when I do it from the command line, but when I put it in a script I get an ambiguous redirect error? To clarify I'm redirecting this to 1000 empty files.. Thanks in advanced!

astrogeek · 07-25-2017, 04:43 PM

Does it work from an interactive shell (i.e. command line)? You should double check that, I do not think that is correct.

You can do that using the tee command with a glob, but I would suggest using find to generate the list of target files with -exec or xargs would be much safer.

justmy2cents · 07-25-2017, 04:53 PM

Yeah it works perfectly from the CLI.. I think it has to do with too many open file descriptors, but nevertheless thanks the suggestions ill try em out.

astrogeek · 07-25-2017, 05:02 PM

What distro and shell are you using?

justmy2cents · 07-25-2017, 05:06 PM

The machine im trying this on has Xubuntu with the Z shell, but I invoke bash in the shell script.

astrogeek · 07-25-2017, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justmy2cents

The machine im trying this on has Xubuntu with the Z shell.

Then perhaps you should change the title of your question: Bash: ambiguous redirect, as that really increases the ambiguity index!

I am not a zsh user but I see that it does support multiple redirection with a MULTIOS flag. That is not a common shell feature and does not work in Bash, or any other shells I am familiar with.

Please try to keep your question contexts accurate.

justmy2cents · 07-26-2017, 10:21 AM

You were reading my answer in real-time and I was editing, but anyways thanks dude!

justmy2cents · 07-27-2017, 12:33 PM

Quote:

You can do that using the tee command with a glob, but I would suggest using find to generate the list of target files with -exec or xargs would be much safer.

Like so?

Code:

#!/bin/bash
find . -name "*myfiles*" -execdir echo HelloWorld | tee myfiles{1..1000} {} \;

The above doesn't work but this one does, however it also prints onscreen, which it why I think you said it's not safe?

Code:

#!/bin/bash
echo HelloWorld | tee myfiles{1..1000}

Also this doesn't work.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
find . -name "*myfiles*" | xargs echo HelloWorld >