Shellcheck: error| syntax error near unexpected token `('

[corbolais]

For bugs

• Rule Id (if any, e.g. SC1000): NA
• My shellcheck version (shellcheck --version or "online"): 0.7.0
• debian package version: 0.7.0-2
• [X] The rule's wiki page does not already cover this (e.g. https://shellcheck.net/wiki/SC2086)
• [X] I tried on shellcheck.net: appears to have been fixed in repo
• including report for reference

Here's a snippet or screenshot that shows the problem:

#!/bin/bash

shopt -s extglob;
for f in /etc/hosts/host\.!(mail)\.conf ; do
    echo "$f";
done;

Here's what shellcheck currently says:

error| syntax error near unexpected token `('

Here's what I wanted or expected to see:

no error at all.

[corbolais]

• appears to have been fixed in repo
• including report for reference

[corbolais]

my memory lane is slow, but drop-out is fast:
re-hit this bug, wanted to report the bug, found my previously created issue..

[bewuethr]

Are you using Ale? I think this is an error emitted by bash -n, not Shellcheck.

[corbolais]

@bewuethr wazzat, Ale? -n? never used -n. Care to elaborate on this?

[bewuethr]

Sorry, didn't give any context. Ale is a Vim plugin that lets you asynchronously run linters. For shell scripts, it defaults to shellcheck and bash -n for linting. -n is described like this in the manual:

Read commands but do not execute them. This may be used to check a script for syntax errors. This option is ignored by interactive shells.

So, for a minimal script with an extended "except" glob

$ cat poc
#!/usr/bin/env bash

shopt -s extglob
echo !(foo)

shellcheck doesn't complain, but bash -n does, with the exact error message you're mentioning above:

$ shellcheck poc
$ bash -n poc
poc: line 4: syntax error near unexpected token `('
poc: line 4: `echo !(foo)'

That's why I'm thinking that this isn't a shellcheck message. The shellcheck codebase doesn't include "unexpected token" anywhere, as far as I can tell.

[corbolais]

Whoa. Thanks. But. No. Not using Ale. Straight shellcheck only.

Can escape the glob for shellcheck to make it happy. Won't execute, though. What will execute, won't pass shellcheck.

[bewuethr]

But how do you run shellcheck? If I paste the snippet from your question, neither shellcheck.net nor my locally installed shellcheck complain. How can I reproduce what you see?

[corbolais]

• shellcheck.net has a fix already merged
• your local shellcheck version may also have the fix merged

Try to downgrade to a shellcheck version prior to the merge, i.e. 0.7.0 (see my initial report).

[bewuethr]

I use 0.7.0, which seems to be the most recent release :man_shrugging:

[corbolais]

Now, _that_ is interesting. What distribution package are you using then?

UPDATE:

(darn, my previous edit got lost in space)

Tested using

shellcheck test.sh

No error.

Opening test.sh with the conflicting content in post #1 results in the error given above.

So it seems shellcheck is indeed not the culprit here but rather the vim-shellcheck plugin.

Thanks @bewuethr for making me realise that shellcheck is not to be blamed here. Heading off to vim-shellcheck, then.