Syntax error when creating bash function with an argument [duplicate]

Question

function y-dl ($URL) {
cd ~/Music/
youtube-dl -f bestaudio --prefer-ffmpeg --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 $URL > /dev/null 2>&1
}

I'm trying to write a bash function for my bash profile that downloads YouTube Audio without any verbosity in stderr or stdout but I get the following compilation error:

-bash: /Users/mu/.bash_profile: line 11: syntax error near unexpected token `$URL'
-bash: /Users/mu/.bash_profile: line 11: `function y-dl ($URL) {'

I'm trying a variant of the top answer from Passing parameters to a Bash function but I can't get it to work.

Functions do not take a parameter list in their definition. And the keyword 'function' is redundant. Just write: y_dl() { ... } (And don't use a hyphen in the name) — William Pursell
– William Pursell, Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 18:56
Within the function, parameters are referenced by number, but you can name them explicitly. local URL=$1 — William Pursell
– William Pursell, Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 18:57
Re: the function keyword, see wiki.bash-hackers.org/scripting/obsolete — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 19:03
...that linked-to answer doesn't show the () string being modified. Why are you modifying it here? — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Mar 2, 2018 at 19:14

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-02 18:57:28Z

2

The correct and modern way :

y-dl() {
    cd ~/Music/
    youtube-dl -f bestaudio --prefer-ffmpeg --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 "$1" &>/dev/null
}

function construction never takes arguments in a signature style Ex: func(foo, bar) it's shell

answered Mar 2, 2018 at 18:57

Gilles Quénot

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