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Full Discussion: [: =: unary operator expected error
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers [: =: unary operator expected error Post 302479606 by methyl on Saturday 11th of December 2010 09:00:21 PM
Old 12-11-2010
If you got an error message, please post what you typed and the error message verbatim.

There are still some dubious lines in the script. The main theme is to always put quotes round character variables whether we strictly need them or not.
Let's look at the variable $datetime. In my timezone this ends up containing space characters.
Code:
datetime=`date +%c_%p`
echo $datetime
Sun Dec 12 01:29:52 2010_AM

Therefore this later line will misbehave:
Code:
cp fhosts $datetime-backup-fhosts # rename process
Should be
cp fhosts "$datetime-backup-fhosts" # rename process

There are more places where character variables need quotes.
if [ "$answer" = "y" ]; then
if [ "$hosta" = "n" ]; then
if [ "$answer" = "n" ]; then

Hmm. I have just noticed that most of this correction was suggested by Radoulov in Post #2 .


Important note. When I copy/paste the amended script from post #1 into M$ notepad I get many lines with a single double quote where I would expect the quotes to be at the end of a preceding string. This may be an issue with the posting method but I do start to wonder about the format of the shellscript file and what editor was used to produce that file.

Please post the output from the following "sed" command. It does not change the file and is just designed to make line terminators visible.
Code:
sed -n l scriptname

Last edited by methyl; 12-11-2010 at 10:37 PM.. Reason: Hmm ...
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

mencal

mencal(1)								 1								 mencal(1)

NAME

       mencal - menstruation calendar

SYNOPSIS

       mencal [options] [file1 file2 ... -c CONF1 -c CONF2 ...]

DESCRIPTION

   Display options:
       -m, --monday
	      draw monday as first weekday (sunday is default)

       -1     current month (default)

       -3     previous, current and next month

       -y [YYYY]
	      all-year calendar (default YYYY is current year)

       -q, --quiet
	      no top information will be printed

       -n, --nocolor
	      noncolored output

       -i, --icolor COLOR
	      intersection color (default red)

	      available colors: red, green, blue, yellow, violet, cyan, shiny, bold

   mencal configuration:
       -c, --config
	      s=[YYYY]MMDD,l=LL,d=DD,n=NAME,f=FILE,c=COLOR

	      The  second argument is a comma separated list of options. No spaces are allowed in this list. If no name is specified, 'Unknown' is
	      used.  Various -c options or filenames can be set.

       s,start=[YYYY]MMDD
	      start day of period (default current day)

       l,length=LL
	      length of period in days (default 28)

       d,duration=D
	      duration of menstruation in days (default 4)

       n,name=NAME
	      name of subject

       f,file=FILE
	      filename to save configuration to (see section FILES)

	      only menstruation related variables will be saved

       c,color=COLOR
	      color used for menstruation days

	      available colors: red, green, blue, yellow, violet, cyan, shiny, bold default color is red, with	'-n'  switch  color  settings  are
	      ignored

   Info options:
       -h, --help
	      print help

       -V, --version
	      print version information

FILES
:
       $HOME/.mencalrc - the default configuration file that is automatically loaded

AUTHOR
:
       (C) 2002 C. McCohy
       e-mail: <mccohy@kyberdigi.cz>
       Word-Wide-Web: http://www.kyberdigi.cz/projects/mencal/english

       This  manual  page  was	written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page (but may be
       used by others).

HISTORY

       22 March 2002 - Originally written by Amaya Rodrigo <amaya@debian.org>.
       24 Apr 2002 - New manpage contributed by Pablo S. Torralba <psanchez@skyrealms.org>.
       Amaya Rodrigo <amaya@debian.org> is now responsible for developing and maintaining this manual page. Comments and suggestions  are  greatly
       wellcome.

mencal							       Menstruation calendar							 mencal(1)
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