Question

I have below code.The logic here is if HostList conatains any blanck entry it should set class as blank, else it should be red.Now I am getting error-

test.sh[3]: syntax error at line 7 : `then’ unexpected

can any one help me out?Thanks!!

     #! /bin/bash
file=./HostList.txt
{
  echo "<table>"
  printf "<tr>"
  if[%s -eq =""]; then
      class="blank"
  else
    class="red"
  fi    
    "<td" $class">%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    <td>%s</td>
    </tr>\n" $(cat "$file"|cut -d'.' -f1)
  echo "</table>"
}  > table.html


exit 0

Answer 1

Bash is very sensitive about whitespace. This should work:

if [ "%s" = "" ]; then

Note that = is used for string comparison and -eq is used for integers.

edit:

More precisely, bash splits your original code like this:

if[%s # supposedly a command
-eq # parameter
=""] # parameter
; # end of command
then # keyword

At this point, Bash realizes that there is an unmatchen then keyword, and doesn’t even try to run if[%s (which would fail too).