"set: illegal option -" on one host but not the other

Question

I've written a sh script in one of my ubuntu VMs which works fine, but when I try to run it in my other VMs, it does not work. Both VMs should be the same. With bash --version both VMs reply with:

GNU bash, version 4.3.11(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

With lsb_release -a, both also reply:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS
Release:        14.04
Codename:       trusty

My security_steps.sh script looks like this:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

if ! [ -f svn_up_action.sh ]; then
  echo "svn_up_action.sh is missing. Please make sure it is in the same directory as this script."
  exit
fi

When I do: sudo sh security_steps.sh, the console errors with:

: not foundeps.sh: 6: security_steps.sh:
security_steps.sh: 7: set: Illegal option -

How can I figure out what's going on with the VM of the non-working shell? I feel like the shells are somehow different. I appreciate your help!

This **isn't a bash script**, so the question shouldn't be tagged bash. `/bin/sh` is POSIX sh, not bash. — Charles Duffy, Feb 12 '16 at 00:56
Also, your probable underlying problem is *the very first thing* that the tag wiki at http://stackoverflow.com/tags/bash/info tells you to check before asking. — Charles Duffy, Feb 12 '16 at 00:57
...similarly, the output of `bash --version` is **completely irrelevant** to a script that uses `#!/bin/sh` rather than `#!/bin/bash`. — Charles Duffy, Feb 12 '16 at 00:58
@CharlesDuffy Thank you so much for that link! Yes there are `^M` at the end of each line — pyramidface, Feb 12 '16 at 01:01
Did using `dos2unix`, the vim `:set fileformat=unix`, or a similar command resolve your problem successfully? — Charles Duffy, Feb 12 '16 at 15:50

score 44 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 12 '16 at 00:57

44

This almost certainly means your file has DOS newlines -- thus, hidden CR characters at the end.

Thus, set -e becomes set -e$'\r' (using bash-specific syntax to represent the CR character), which isn't a valid option.

This also explains the : not found, as a CR will reset the cursor to the beginning of the line, truncating an error message of the form sh: commandname: not found by making the commandname instead an operation that moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.

answered Feb 12 '16 at 00:57

Charles Duffy

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This is the underlying solution to the problem and this answer should be marked as accepted. I came through this problem and took about 2 hours to realize that a simple edit with VsCode on my script was placing that CR characters at the end. – cr_alberto Jan 19 '21 at 18:35

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '16 at 05:45

12

I had *.sh file throwing me this while running it on Windows (via GitBash).

I've had to change line endings to UNIX/OSX format.

answered May 09 '16 at 05:45

ign

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1

This is the same thing the answer preceding it by three months said, no? – Charles Duffy Jan 03 '20 at 16:09

JeffersonSousa · Answer 3 · 2020-10-07T01:16:39.067

10

In Windows:

choco install dos2unix
dos2unix file.sh

In Linux:

sudo apt install dos2unix
dos2unix file.sh

dos2unix converts the file to the Unix type.

After doing this, try to run the application again or the file.

edited Oct 07 '20 at 01:16

answered Oct 07 '20 at 01:10

JeffersonSousa

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score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 07:30

7

If you run into this problem because you are touching your files on a Windows machine, Notepad++ is your friend.

Inspection
View > Show Symbol > Show All Characters
Look for CR LF line endings, rather than LF line endings!

Solving
Search > Replace (Ctrl+H)
Make sure Search Mode is set to Extended
Find \r\n and replace with \n

edited Jun 07 '21 at 07:30

AEM

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answered Jun 04 '21 at 11:58

Laurens Koppenol

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 08 '20 at 16:01

I got the same Error,

Later I found that these raise because My shell script file moved from a windows machine to Linux machine(there may be a chance of formating or Encoding error).

So I have created the document in Linux machine itself. It solved the issue.

This "May" help few, I am posting this because it worked for me.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 13 '22 at 06:54

0

You can use the below command, it will remove the hidden CR characters

sed -i 's/\r$//' filename

answered Aug 13 '22 at 06:54

Thiyan Arumugam

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"set: illegal option -" on one host but not the other

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