Question

./chkf: line 30: syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
'/chkf: line 30: `elif [ -f "$object" ] ; then


if [ -d "$object" ] ; then
    message="$message a directory"
elif [ -f "$object" ] ; then
    message="$message a regular file."
else
    message="$message not a known file type"
fi

Also this,

./chkf: line 38: syntax error near unexpected token `else'
'/chkf: line 38: `else 

if [ -w "$object" ] ; then
    write="writeable"
else 
    write="not writeable"
fi

What is wrong with this? It seems to be correct. I tried so many variations and cannot figure out what is wrong. Is there some kind of invisible character? If so, is there a command to strip it?

Edit: When I add #!/bin/bash at the top, I get the following error:

interpreter "/bin/bash" not found
file link resolves to "/usr/bin/bash"
-bash: ./chkf: /bin/bash^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Answer 1

It’s your line endings. Transferring it from Windows has left the CR/LF line endings on.

When I create a script then manually add the CR characters, I get exactly the same error:

qq.sh: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `elif'
'q.sh: line 3: `elif [ 1 == 1 ] ; then

You can fix it by removing the CR character from CR/LF line endings.

cat script.sh | sed 's/\r$//' >newscript.sh