Re: Problem with small script

[Greg Wooledge]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:06:37PM +0700, Robert Parker wrote:
> The script:
> #/bin/bash
> # testlink.sh
> # must be run as root
> 
> file1="$1"
> shift
> mandir=/usr/local/share/man/man3/
> cp "$file1" "$mandir"
> cd "$mandir"

You MUST check the result of cd.  If it fails but you continue on,
you will be operating in the wrong place.

> echo '$hash = '"$#"
> while (( "$#" )); do
>     file2="$1"
>     ln "$file1" "$file2"
>     shift
> done
> 
> Results:
> >> sudo ./testlink.sh readfile.3 readtextfile.3
> $hash = 1
> ./testlink.sh: 11: ./testlink.sh: 1: not found
> >>

As near as I can tell, you are somehow running this script under sh
instead of bash.

wooledg@wooledg:~$ cat foo
#!/bin/bash
while (( "$#" )); do
  shift
done
wooledg@wooledg:~$ ./foo
wooledg@wooledg:~$ sh ./foo
./foo: 2: ./foo: 0: not found

Maybe you forgot to give it execute permissions, and therefore sudo
runs sh for you or something.  That's just a wild guess.  (Can't
reproduce that on my system.)  But whatever the reason, the behavior
you're seeing is fully consistent with executing it under the wrong
shell.