Syntax error near unexpected token - shell scripting

Question

I am new to shell scripting and I am trying to write a simple script to run a number of files through a program. I am trying to take a file, all of which begin with the name restart and are located in the r0970.t240 directory, and copy an individual file to the file st2.res which is the name of the file the program I am running takes in and analyzes and is located in a directory called crystal. This is the process I wish to repeat for all the files. I have made an attempt at doing so, but when I attempt to run the script I get the following error message:

 line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `cp'.

I know there's a lot of specificity when it comes to shell scripts in terms of spaces and symbols and what not, so I am most likely overlooking something but due to my inexperience I don't know quite what. Any help would be much appreciated.

Here is the script in question:

cd ~Documents/work/useful/r0970.t240
for file in restart*
cp $file ~/desktop/crystal/st2.res
cd ~/desktop/crystal
./a.out
rm st2.res
done

Adrian Frühwirth · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-01 12:57:27Z

1

A (for) loop in shell scripting requires a do as part of its head. You should also quote your variables, especially when dealing with filenames, otherwise your scripts will break on filenames with spaces.

E.g.:

for file in restart*; do
#                   ^^^^
    cp "$file" ~/desktop/crystal/st2.res
    [...]
done

You should also consider, rather than cding into a directory, to use absolute paths and to indent your code for better readability.

answered Aug 1, 2013 at 12:57

Adrian Frühwirth

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2 Comments

Siobhan Over a year ago

Thank you very much, this fixed my problem perfectly. I will keep these tips in mind as I continue looking into shell scripting.

Siobhan Over a year ago

Thanks for your help! Still getting to know the site :-P

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