bash script source: No such file or directory

Question

I have a script that begin like this

#!/bin/bash
VALKYRIE=~/myProjects/valkyrie
source $VALKYRIE/cluster.conf

but when I run it it returns line 2: ~/myProjects/valkyrie/cluster.conf: No such file or directory

but the file exist and when I run source ~/myProjects/valkyrie/cluster.conf it runs fine. Any idea? I set VALKYRIE variable elsewhere so hard-code in the path isn't an option.

Solution

~ doesn't appear to be expanding properly. When I run your script with an intentionally fake path, the error doesn't say ~, but expands the path (i.e. /home/sparhawk/fakepath not ~/fakepath. You could try using $HOME instead of ~, or using the full path in the script instead.

(I'm not sure why ~ doesn't work on your system, as your script works fine for me.)

Comments

[fiatux]

When you look at the order that bash performs expansions (gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Shell-Expansions)‌​, you'll see that tilde expansion happens before variable expansion. That's why $HOME is better than ~ in a variable

[Sparhawk]

@glennjackman I'm not sure I understand. Why would priority matter for variables vs. ~?

[fiatux]

it's not exactly "priority", it's simply what comes first. Consider x="~/.bashrc"; ls $x -- in the order of expansions for the "ls" command, bash looks for a tilde and doesn't find one; eventually bash sees a variable and expands it. bash does not go back and look for tildes again, at this point it's just a plain character. and there are no files in the current directory that begin with a tilde.

[Sparhawk]

Ah okay. I think I get it. I've always wondered why that command fails and x=~/".bashrc"; ls $x works. Thanks for the info.