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Accepted
Niklas Rosencrantz
Asked: 2018-04-29 13:28:33 +0800 CST

How to provoke a syntax error in the bash shell

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I only have 20 % test coverage for my project. https://coveralls.io/github/montao/opsh

I want to add a test for syntax error. I am unable to receive the output "syntax error" from a simple oneliner shell command. Could you help me with some example(s)?

command-line testing bash

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer
    ;

    returns:

    bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;'
    • 5

  2. You can use the vast majority of bash's reserved words and control operators to provoke a syntax error – let's do a quick test to get a (of course incomplete!) list:

    $ tabs 10
  for i in '|' '&' ';' '(' ')' '<' '>' '||' '&&' \
           ';;' '|&' 'case' 'coproc' 'do' 'done' \
           'elif' 'else' 'esac' 'fi' 'for' 'function' \
           'if' 'in' 'select' 'then' 'until' 'while' \
           '{' '}' '[[' ']]';
  do
    printf "%s\t" "$i"; bash -c $i |& sed '2d;s/.*://'
  done
|          syntax error near unexpected token `|'                                                                                                      
&          syntax error near unexpected token `&'
;          syntax error near unexpected token `;'
(          unexpected end of file
)          syntax error near unexpected token `)'
<          syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
>          syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
||         syntax error near unexpected token `||'
&&         syntax error near unexpected token `&&'
;;         syntax error near unexpected token `;;'
|&         syntax error near unexpected token `|&'
case       syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
coproc     syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
do         syntax error near unexpected token `do'
done       syntax error near unexpected token `done'
elif       syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
else       syntax error near unexpected token `else'
esac       syntax error near unexpected token `esac'
fi         syntax error near unexpected token `fi'
for        syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
function   syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
if         unexpected end of file
in         syntax error near unexpected token `in'
select     syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
then       syntax error near unexpected token `then'
until      unexpected end of file
while      unexpected end of file
{          unexpected end of file
}          syntax error near unexpected token `}'
[[         unexpected token `EOF' in conditional command
]]         syntax error near unexpected token `]]'

    I took those from man bash/DEFINITIONS and /RESERVED WORDS.

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