1

I'm just getting started on a script that does basic shell commands, but the second function, which is supposed to take a valid year and month and plug them into cal, is returning with this error:

Enter the year:
2014
/home/duncan/menuscript.sh: line 34: [2014: command not found
/home/duncan/menuscript.sh: line 34: [2014: command not found
This is an invalid year

This is the code I am working on, I have looked for the answer already, and I cant figure out why it wont compile.. I am not trying to enter the date as a command!

#!/bin/bash
echo "Welcome to Duncan's main menu"
function press_enter
{
    echo ""
    echo -n "Press Enter to continue"
    read
    clear
}
year=
month=
selection=
until [ "$selection" = "9" ] 
do
  clear
  echo ""
  echo "    1 -- Display users currently logged in"
  echo "    2 -- Display a calendar for a specific month and year"
  echo "    3 -- Display the current directory path"
  echo "    4 -- Change directory"
  echo "    5 -- Long listing of visible files in the current directory"
  echo "    6 -- Display current time and date and calendar"
  echo "    7 -- Start the vi editor"
  echo "    8 -- Email a file to a user"
  echo "    9 -- Quit"
  echo ""
  echo "Make your selection:"
  read selection
  echo ""
  case $selection in
    1) who ; press_enter ;;
    2) echo "Enter the year:" ;
       read year ;
       if [$year>1] || [$year<9999]; then
         echo "Enter the month:" 
         read month
         if [0<$month<12]; then
           cal -d $year-$month 
           press_enter
         else
           echo "This is an invalid month"
           press_enter
         fi
       else
          echo "This is an invalid year"
          press_enter 
       fi ;;

    9) exit ;;
    *) echo "Please enter a valid option" ; press_enter ;;
   esac
done
Improve this question
5
  • without looking too close, since you're using #!/bin/bash anyway, why not use select rather than case here? It does pretty much all of that automatically, I think. Though, if I recall correctly - (not guarantee), bash can sometimes trip up *) rather than (*).... Oh yeah, the issue is probably here: if [0<$month<12] - you want some spaces and quotes I think... Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:26
  • Put a space between the [ and the following text. This ought to fix it Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:29
  • @mikeserv Spaces and quotes alone will not make it work. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:32
  • @HaukeLaging - probably not. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:33
  • @danielkullmann No. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:34

1 Answer 1

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1

There is a (common) syntax error in this line (OK, not only one...):

[$year>1]

  1. [ is not a special character but an ordinary command. Thus the rest of the line is parameters and those must be separated by whitespace: [ "$year" > 1 ]

  2. The next problem is that > is not an ordinary parameter but the redirection character (a metacharacter). Thus the shell sees (e.g.) [2014 and looks for a command with this name. If there was one then the shell would write its output to the file 1]...

If you use [ ... ] then you need the operator -gt (greater than):

[ "$year" -gt 1 ]

An alternative is to use the bash reserved word [[ instead of [. You still have to use the whitespace as separator but you can omit the quotes:

[[ $year -gt 1 ]]

or you can use arithmetic expressions to compare integers:

((year > 1))
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5
  • Thanks! However, right before you posted this I tried just adding the spaces, and it worked without the double brackets Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:35
  • @Duncan It is not working (the way you expect) if you keep using > and <. And 0<$month<12 is not working at all, not even with [[. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:37
  • I split it up into $month>0 and $month<12 and it works smoothly. Also, you were right about [[ with only [ it gave the correct cal but with a small error above Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:38
  • @Duncan Then you may accept this answer so that the readers of this site see that your problem is solved. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 19:42
  • 1
    @Duncan Note that you cannot use > inside double brackets either. Well, you can, syntactically speaking, but it doesn't do what you might think it does: it compares strings, not numbers, so e.g. [[ 10 > 2 ]] is false. You can use familiar arithmetic syntax inside double parentheses. Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 23:47

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