Compiled error of executing chapter2 source code

williamlin · September 25th, 2004, 01:45 AM

: command not found
: command not found
'irst: line 9: syntax error near unexpected token `do
'irst: line 9: `do

Above words are the error msg after I run the command "/bin/sh first"
which showed on page 26.

Please help me out!

William

jkeen · September 25th, 2004, 10:44 AM

Did you type the source code for 'first' from scratch? If so, check for typing errors.

The error message is directing your attention to line 9. Usually -- but not always -- the error will be found in line 9 or the one immediately preceding.

Copy-and-paste the code you actually tried to compile -- not just the error message you got. It makes it a lot easier for others to help out in diagnosis.

Jim Keenan

Just Another Perl Hacker

williamlin · September 26th, 2004, 05:53 PM

The source code I used is downloaded from wrox website directly, and I did not modify any single word of them.
So I think that it is not typing error.
Any possible error in this case?

williamlin · September 26th, 2004, 05:56 PM

#!/bin/sh

# first
# This file looks through all the files in the current
# directory for the string POSIX, and then prints the name of
# those files to the standard output.

for file in *
do
  if grep -q POSIX $file
  then
    echo $file
  fi
done

exit 0

Above it is the source code I copied from my source code folder

AriConstancio · September 27th, 2004, 04:27 AM

Hello,

I don't have the book nearby, but I wrote the script from scratch and didn't find any mistakes, listing my home directory and pointing the one file with the word POSIX... the script itself ;).
Try to make it executable (even though there isn't any problem with /bin/sh first):
$ chmod u+x first
$ ./first

Ari Constancio

thestarman · March 3rd, 2005, 04:44 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by williamlin
: command not found
: command not found
'irst: line 9: syntax error near unexpected token `do
'irst: line 9: `do

Above words are the error msg after I run the command "/bin/sh first"
which showed on page 26.

William, I get exactly the same error message when running Knoppix 3.7 as either 'root' or any other user! Running it under Ubuntu's "Warty Warthog" (another 'debian-based' Linux version) is also exactly the same! Now, notice this very similar, but not exactly the same output:

Code:

: command not found
: command not found
'irst: line 9: syntax error near unexpected token `
'irst: line 9: `

I got this after placing a blank line between the one with "for files in *" and the "do" line. HOWEVER, that's far from the end of my testing! If you set the "first" script's permissions to be an executable file, and ENTER it like this: ./first, then I end up getting this error message:

Code:

: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

What makes this so frustrating is the fact that I got the whole thing to work just fine when ENTERING the commands line by line as shown in the book; well, actually the book shows a slight variation of "first" but I then entered "first"'s lines and yes, it does work that way! I'm going to try running this in a completely different version of Linux and see if its "bash" is acting the same way... later...

The Starman
http://thestarman.dan123.com/

thestarman · March 3rd, 2005, 06:15 PM

Well, here I am under Red Hat 9.0 Linux, and I'm getting the same very frustrating error for other scripts in chapter 2 as well:

Code:

$ ./first
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
$ ./_if
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Yet, if I enter it similar to what the author showed us on page 24, like this:

Code:

$ for file in *
> do
> if grep -q POSIX $file
> then
> echo $file
> fi
> done
first
README

You can see that it lists the two files in the 'chapter02' directory that contain the word "POSIX"! And if I use the command history, it comes up like this and still works fine:

Code:

$ for file in *; do if grep -q POSIX $file; then echo $file; fi; done
first
README

It also acts the same way if I go into 'sh' :

Code:

sh-2.05b$ ./first
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

So, does anyone know what's going on with all of these Linux OS Shell's not working the way the author expected?!?!?
:(
I just finally figured out what has been causing this problem! And boy am I mad at the last person to have touched the author's code files, especially if it was one of them, since they should know better: ALL THE FILES WERE FILLED WITH DOS/WINDOWS NEW LINE PAIRS (0xA 0xD) INSTEAD OF just the Linux/UNIX single New Line character! After converting them to Linux new line files, all should work fine!
This was something I certainly didn't expect with a book only about Linux/UNIX! I wonder what

M$ windoze only guy at WROX did this to us? ;)

The Starman
http://thestarman.dan123.com/

AriConstancio · March 4th, 2005, 09:35 AM

Hello,

Interesting... That's why I said it was working - I typed it all and didn't use any code.

Ari ConstÃ¢ncio

plantseeker · December 12th, 2005, 02:54 PM

If you need to change mdos formatted text to unix/linux format

open the msdos text file in vi and type the following commands:

: set fileformat=unix
: wq

Why oh why are the download files formatted in msdos ?

All Begineers need help not hurdles.

mpettis · June 7th, 2006, 09:33 PM

Just wanted to say that this post got me over my first hurdle. How do you contact wrox to make them change the msdos newline? i'll have to do it for every sample i downloaded from them and want to try...