Bash script: syntax error near unexpected token `('

Question

I'm running a script in Bash on a Mac and I am trying to split a string with the delimiter being a space into an array. The command I'm running is:

array = ($(echo "$string" | tr ' ' "\n"))

that returns the "unexpected '('" error. I've tried multiple solutions including

escaping the parentheses
putting quotes around the command
making sure the space wasn't causing the error
making sure my header is #!/bin/bash

Please install `shellcheck` to help you debug scripts: `sudo apt-get install shellcheck` — George Udosen, Jun 22 '18 at 20:42
Possible duplicate of https://askubuntu.com/questions/21136/how-to-debug-bash-script — David Foerster, Jun 23 '18 at 19:31
reference to Mac not irrelevant - macs use an ancient version of Bash. Reopen to close as dupe of ultra generic question? No thanks. Please ask on [apple.se] or [unix.se] — Zanna, Jun 23 '18 at 19:50
@Zanna Granted OP uses Mac, but the syntax of such basic thing as variable assignment and command substitution has been the same through multiple versions of bash, and in fact `var_name=word` , that is no-space between name, `=`, and `word` is POSIX-specified, so . . . version is actually irrelevant here and non-Mac specific. — Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy, Jun 23 '18 at 20:31

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '18 at 20:40

First of all, assignments in shell scripts should not contain spaces between left-hand side of = ( the variable/array name ) and right-hand side of the assignment operator =. As for converting string to array, you don't need to replace spaces with newlines explicitly, just take advantage of automatic word splitting, which occurs when unquoted variables are called:

$ string='This is a hello world string'
$ array=( $string  )
$ echo ${array[3]}
hello
$ echo ${array[4]}
world

Brilliant, this is a much cleaner way to do it. Also thanks for the catch about shell script assignments. — javarookie, Jun 25 '18 at 12:39

Bash script: syntax error near unexpected token `('

1 Answers1