(Ubuntu 15.10 64 Bit) Similar errors when running wine/steam/aapt - newline unexpected, expecting ")"

Question

I'm getting some similar errors while running aapt from Android-Studio, Running wine via playonlinux (haven't tried normal wine yet) or when trying to install steam. Perhaps with other programs as well, though I haven't tested them all.

After a bit of googling I haven't found a viable solution.

Here's an example from aapt in Android-Studio:

AAPT err(Facade for 1508687752): /home/xxx/Android/Sdk/build-tools/23.0.2/aapt: 2: /home/xxx/Android/Sdk/build-tools/23.0.2/aapt: Syntax error: newline unexpected (expecting ")")

The errors in wine and steam are similar, it's always syntax error and that it's expecting ")" or that "(" is unexpected.

I've also tested it with a script:

#!/bin/bash
echo 'test'
array=(1 2 3 4 5)
echo ${array[*]}

which gives me the same error when running with sh. When I'm running it with bash or "./" it works fine.

What's the cause of this problem and what can I do to fix it?

Answer 1

Okay, so many people don't know this, but by default Ubuntu links /bin/sh to dash, not bash. You can check this with the following:

ls -l /bin/sh

The dash shell does not support arrays as bash does as explained here.

You can check what shell you currently have open with:

echo "$SHELL"

That said, it's very odd that pre-packaged programs would be encountering that error. I would expect them to already start with #!/bin/bash if they needed it.

You can edit the scripts in question to include #!/bin/bash at the top.

If a script does not have a "shebang" line (the #! and etc. at the top) then the current shell is the default for using ./ for execution. You can change your login shell with chsh followed by your password when prompted and /bin/bash when prompted. You will have to relog.

If that doesn't help, you could also change the symlink (this probably won't break anything, but YMMV):

sudo rm /bin/sh
sudo ln -s bash /bin/sh