Syntax error: "(" unexpected (expecting "fi")

[ulysses4ever]

I downloaded the script, run it on my Ubuntu 16.04 laptop and get

$ with ls
/home/ulysses/bin/with: 12: /home/ulysses/bin/with: Syntax error: "(" unexpected (expecting "fi")

[eush77]

Same error for me under Dash (which is what /bin/sh is sym-linked to on my system). Runs ok under Bash though.

[ulysses4ever]

I tried it (and got above mentioned error) in gnome-terminal.

[ulysses4ever]

Oh, I see: I also have /bin/sh synlinked to dash. I just changed the script to call bash. Though it would be nice if authors accounted this somehow.

[eush77]

Yeah, the workaround is to change the interpreter to Bash. Although it was changed the other way in 61d059d so it is probably in the author's intentions to make it run under any POSIX shell.

Either way, I don't think this issue should be closed right now.

[mchav]

Yes @eush77 I'd like it to run under any Posix shell. We'll keep the issue open. If anyone has any insights on how to run it on dash please let me know.

[eush77]

I ran shellcheck on this script with the first line changed to #!/bin/sh and it found several Bash-specific features used by the code:

• arrays;
• here-strings;
• read -e (readline mode);
• escaped string literals ($'\n');
• declare and type builtins.

And it somehow missed this:

• substring expansion (${parameter:offset:length})— not specified by POSIX.

Overall, it seems highly non-trivial to make with run under any POSIX shell, which lack some crucial features that are otherwise supported by Bash (how can we work around missing read -e?).