I'm getting a bash: syntax error near unexpected token '('

Question

I'm working on saving high scores for my Game Elf JAMMA board (412-in-1). I'm currently following this tutorial. I'm trying to run this command

mv hiscore(pre_mame0133u1).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat

but as you can see in my screenshot, it's returning an error

bash: syntax error near unexpected token '('

Solution

bash: syntax error near unexpected token '('

You need to escape the brackets:

mv hiscore\(pre_mame0133u1\).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat

Note:

For future reference you can use ShellCheck to find bugs in your bash code. Entering the uncorrected script gives the following:

$ shellcheck myscript

Line 1:
mv hiscore(pre_mame0133u1).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat
^-- SC2148: Tips depend on target shell and yours is unknown. Add a shebang.
          ^-- SC1036: '(' is invalid here. Did you forget to escape it?
          ^-- SC1088: Parsing stopped here. Invalid use of parentheses?

Correcting the first error:

$ shellcheck myscript

Line 1:
mv hiscore\(pre_mame0133u1).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat
^-- SC2148: Tips depend on target shell and yours is unknown. Add a shebang.
                          ^-- SC1089: Parsing stopped here. Is this keyword correctly matched up?

And correcting the second error:

$ shellcheck myscript

Line 1:
mv hiscore\(pre_mame0133u1\).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat
^-- SC2148: Tips depend on target shell and yours is unknown. Add a shebang.

---

Further Reading

• An A-Z Index of the Bash command line for Linux - An excellent reference for all things Bash command line related.
• syntax-quoting - Escape Characters, delimiters and Quotes

Comments

[Kenyon]

Ok, so I tried that, but now it says 'mv: cannot stat 'hiscore(pre_mame0133u1).dat': No such file or directory` I assume has something to do with it not being able to find the file in my downloads folder? But I don't know for sure.

[DavidPostill]

@KenyonGeetings Run ls -l and see if it's there ...

[Kenyon]

I just ran ls -l and this is the output imgur.com/a/3zzWL. So no, it's not there. But how do I go about getting it to show up there? Thanks for all your help so far!

[DavidPostill]

@KenyonGeetings Did you "Unzip the archive and get the hiscore(pre_mame0133u1).dat file this gets used the rest is not."?

[meson800]

@KenyonGeetings, from the upper right of your screenshot, you've unzipped the dat file to Downloads, not to the base of your home directory. The terminal starts in your home directory, so you can either change directory to it (so your commands are relative to Downloads) by doing cd Downloads then running the move command above, or adding that part of the path and doing mv Downloads\hiscore\(pre_mame0133u1\).dat /mnt/three/usr/local/share/xmame/hiscore.dat

[DavidPostill]

@meson800 Well spotted :)

[Kenyon]

@meson800@DavidPostill thank you both, I got it working!