Question

The following code is used to create a file in exactly location.However result of running test.sh abc is

touch: missing file operand

#! /bin/sh
#test.sh
location='~/configuration/'$1
echo $location
touch `$location`

Is there anything wrong?Thanks!

Answer 1

By putting $location in backticks, you’re trying to execute the value of $location and use that as the argument to touch (see here, section 3.4.5) Just do:

touch $location

If you run #!/bin/sh with the -x value, you’ll see more clearly what bash is doing in your shell script. It’s a very useful means to debug scripts.