Syntax error in shell script saying unexpected token `(

Question

I have written the following shell script

while :; do
status=$($EMR_BIN/elastic-mapreduce --jobflow $JOBFLOW --list | grep "CopyLogs" | awk '{print $1}')
[[ $status == +( *RUNNING*|*PENDING*|*WAITING* ) ]] || break
sleep 60
done

Its giving me an error in line 3 saying syntax error in conditional expression: unexpected token('' . I tried giving whitespaces between my braces, but its not working.

Can anyone help me out.

You have to use "=~" operator instead of "==". stackoverflow.com/questions/304864/… — spinus
– spinus, Commented May 25, 2014 at 9:30

tripleee · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-25 09:22:00Z

1

Looks like you are trying to use extended globbing. Make sure you have shopt -s extglob somewhere earlier in your script, or rewrite to use standard globbing.

#!/bin/sh
while :; do
    case $($EMR_BIN/elastic-mapreduce --jobflow $JOBFLOW --list | awk '/CopyLogs/{print $1}') in
        *RUNNING*|*PENDING*|*WAITING* ) sleep 60;; 
        *) break;;
    esac
done

Since there are no remaining Bashisms, this script is now POSIX sh compatible. (Personally, I also think it is more readable this way.)

(Note also the fix for the useless grep | awk.)

edited May 25, 2014 at 9:22

answered May 25, 2014 at 8:35

tripleee

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1 Comment

user2890683 Over a year ago

oh ok you mean to say to use shopt -x extglob ,right?

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