Syntax error near unexpected token `elif'

Question

./chkf: line 30: syntax error near unexpected token `elif' '/chkf: line 30: `elif [ -f "$object" ] ; then   if [ -d "$object" ] ; then     message="$message a directory" elif [ -f "$object" ] ; then     message="$message a regular file." else     message="$message not a known file type" fi 

Also this,

./chkf: line 38: syntax error near unexpected token `else' '/chkf: line 38: `else   if [ -w "$object" ] ; then     write="writeable" else      write="not writeable" fi 

What is wrong with this? It seems to be correct. I tried so many variations and cannot figure out what is wrong. Is there some kind of invisible character? If so, is there a command to strip it?

Edit: When I add #!/bin/bash at the top, I get the following error:

interpreter "/bin/bash" not found file link resolves to "/usr/bin/bash" -bash: ./chkf: /bin/bash^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory 

Answer 1

It's your line endings. Transferring it from Windows has left the CR/LF line endings on.

When I create a script then manually add the CR characters, I get exactly the same error:

qq.sh: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `elif' 'q.sh: line 3: `elif [ 1 == 1 ] ; then 

You can fix it by removing the CR character from CR/LF line endings.

cat script.sh | sed 's/\r//' >newscript.sh 

Answer 2

Two ways to resolve this

1) Using Sed:-

Syntax

sed -i 's/\r//' filename.txt 

2) Using dos2unix command

Syntax

dos2unix fileName.txt fileName.txt