Bash "function { }" call ignored.... ?

[OldGaf]

Any idea why this will work on a Redhat system, but not on my Kubuntu?

It's like it doesn't understand the function { } at all..... It should go right to the case and only use the function when called. Instead it dies right away with:

This is the first choice
test: 9: Syntax error: "}" unexpected

#!/bin/bash

function first {

clear

echo "This is the first choice"

}

function second {

clear

echo "This is the second choice"

}

clear

echo "What do you want to do?"
echo
echo "1 Print the first message"
echo "2 Print the second message"
echo "3 Quit"

read pick

case $pick in
1 ) first;;
2 ) second;;
3 ) exit;;

esac

[Monicker]

I think your functions should look like this

function () {

 <do something>

}

Doesn't seem that you are passing any variables so just "()" is sufficient.

[davidpbrown]

That worked for me in Ubuntu.

One issue I came across recently was running scripts, under cron for example, sometimes forces dash not bash.

I don't know where you're running what, or how Kubuntu differs to suggest more..

[rubicon]

No clue.

Just copypasted it in gedit and ran. Everything works. There could be brackets after function names (e.g. function first () {...), but for me it runs anyway.

What's your bash version?

$ /bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.33(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

[OldGaf]

I think your functions should look like this

function () {

 <do something>

}

Doesn't seem that you are passing any variables so just "()" is sufficient.

Nope.... If I add () I get:

test: 3: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

[Monicker]

Nope.... If I add () I get:

Hrmm. It worked for me using Ubuntu 7.10.

I copied and posted from your first post, and just added the () to each function.

arkaic@purgatory:/tmp$ ./function.sh




What do you want to do?

1 Print the first message
2 Print the second message
3 Quit
1





This is the first choice
arkaic@purgatory:/tmp$

arkaic@purgatory:/tmp$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Maybe it really is something different about kubuntu.

[OldGaf]

No clue.

Just copypasted it in gedit and ran. Everything works. There could be brackets after function names (e.g. function first () {...), but for me it runs anyway.

What's your bash version?

$ /bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.33(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Sigh.... and it works at work... (actually a much larger script, this is just a test to figure this out)

How did you run it.... sh <filename> ?

[davidpbrown]

./filename
having made it executable obviously..

[davidpbrown]

Trying
sh ./filename
just gave the error you had initially.

[davidpbrown]

and reading briefly man sh suggests it uses dash.