Empty function in BASH

Question

I'm using FPM tool to create .deb package. This tool create before/after remove package from supported files.

Unfortunatly the bash script generated by FPM contains such function

dummy() {
}

And this script exit with an error:

Syntax error: "}" unexpected

Does BASH doesn't allow empty functions? Which version of bash/linux have this limitation?

Answer 1

You could use : that is equivalent to true and is mostly used as do nothing operator...

dummy(){
     : 
  }

Answer 2

A one liner

dummy(){ :; }

---

: is the null command

; is needed in the one line format

Answer 3

An empty bash function may be illegal. function contains only comments will be considered to be empty too.

a ":" (null command) can be placed in function if you want to "DO NOTHING"

see: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/functions.html