(
is invalid here. Did you forget to escape it?
Problematic code:
echo (foo) bar
Correct code:
Depends on your intention:
echo "(foo) bar" # Literal parentheses
echo "$(foo) bar" # Command expansion
echo "foo bar" # Tried to use parentheses for grouping or function invocation
Rationale:
ShellCheck expected an ordinary shell word but found an opening parenthesis instead.
Determine what you intended the parenthesis to do and rewrite accordingly. Common issues include:
- Wanting them to be literal, as in
echo (FAIL) Some tests failed
. In this case, it requires quoting. - Wanting command expansion, as in
echo Today is (date)
. Add the missing$
:echo "Today is $(date)"
- Adding parentheses because other languages need them in that context, such as
foo (bar, 42)
to call a function. This should befoo bar 42
. Also, shells do not support tuples or passing arrays as single parameters.
Exceptions:
Bash allows some parentheses as part of assignment-like tokens to certain commands, including export
and eval
. This is a workaround in Bash to allow commands that normally would not be valid:
eval foo=(bar) # Valid command
echo foo=(bar) # Invalid syntax
f=foo; eval $f=(bar) # Also invalid
In these cases, please quote the command, such as eval "foo=(bar)"
. This does not change the behavior, but stops relying on Bash-specific parsing quirks.
Related resources:
- Help by adding links to BashFAQ, StackOverflow, man pages, POSIX, etc!
-
Installation
-
Usage
-
Integrating and extending
Each individual ShellCheck warning has its own wiki page like SC1000. Use GitHub Wiki's "Pages" feature above to find a specific one, or see Checks.
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