shell script error expecting "do"

Question

#!/bin/sh
while true ; do
echo "WTF"
done

This is giving a syntax error: syntax error: unexpected end of file (expecting "do")

I also tried:

#!/bin/sh
while :
do
echo "WTF"
done

Solution 1

I suspect line endings.

Try:

hexdump -C yourscript.sh 

And look for 0d 0a sequences. You can strip \r (0d) with the tr command:

cat yourscript.sh | tr -d '\r' >> yournewscript.sh

Solution 2

Give this a try:

#!/bin/sh
while [ true ]
do
    echo "WTF"
done

Please pay special attention to the spaces in the line 'while [ true ]'

Comments

[jwir3]

Ah, whoops... beat me to it. ;)

[Jordan]

I see 0d 0a sequences but your line to strip them out with the tr command didn't work for me. I used vi after that didn't work and its working fine now! thanks

[Ofer]

No problem. If you are uploading the script to your linux/unix box via FTP, you can select ascii/text format, and FTP will handle the end of line conversion for you. If, on the other hand, you are creating the file some other way, tr is a good tool to strip unwanted characters.

[Josh Graham]

@Jordan That command did not work for me if I tried to name the new script the same name as the old script. If you use a different name, delete the old file, then rename the new file to the old file name it will work.

[viveknaskar]

This command worked for me as I had messed up the line endings. Thanks!