Bash – Syntax error : end of file unexpected (expecting “fi”)

bashmakefile

I am writing a makefile in bash and I have a target in which I try to find if a file exists and even though I think the syntax is correct, i still gives me an error.

Here is the script that I am trying to run

read: 
        if [ -e testFile] ; then \ 
        cat testFile\ 
        fi

I am using tabs so that is not a problem.

The error is (when I type in: "make read")

if [ -e testFile] ; then \
        cat testFile \
        fi
/bin/sh: Syntax error: end of file unexpected (expecting "fi")
make: *** [read] Error 2

Best Answer

Try adding a semicolon after cat testFile. For example:

read: 
    if [ -e testFile ] ; then  cat testFile ; fi

alternatively:

read:
    test -r testFile && cat testFile

Related Solutions

Bash – How to tell if a regular file does not exist in Bash

The test command ([ here) has a "not" logical operator which is the exclamation point (similar to many other languages). Try this:

if [ ! -f /tmp/foo.txt ]; then
    echo "File not found!"
fi

Linux – Looping through the content of a file in Bash

One way to do it is:

while read p; do
  echo "$p"
done <peptides.txt

As pointed out in the comments, this has the side effects of trimming leading whitespace, interpreting backslash sequences, and skipping the last line if it's missing a terminating linefeed. If these are concerns, you can do:

while IFS="" read -r p || [ -n "$p" ]
do
  printf '%s\n' "$p"
done < peptides.txt

Exceptionally, if the loop body may read from standard input, you can open the file using a different file descriptor:

while read -u 10 p; do
  ...
done 10<peptides.txt

Here, 10 is just an arbitrary number (different from 0, 1, 2).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – How to tell if a regular file does not exist in Bash

Linux – Looping through the content of a file in Bash

Related Topic