line 6: $file: ambiguous redirect

[asd1234qwerty]

Hi, i have the following code, but when i enter the word to add, the following error appears line 6: $file: ambiguous redirect. Does anyone know why?

echo "enter file"
read file
echo "enter word to add"
read word
echo "$word" >> $file

Thanks for your help.

 

[asd1234qwerty]

i just realized that i needed to add quotation marks to make "$file". But now, it says cannot find file or directory, but it does exist...

 

[SamBones]

You shouldn't have to quote [tt]$file[/tt] if you have no spaces or other special characters in the file name you enter.

are you sure this is your whole script? It's complaining about line 6, but I only see 5 lines.

This script works perfectly on my machine.

What value are you entering for "$file"? You could be entering something that creates bad syntax for the last "echo" line.

 

[SamBones]

Are you entering a space or wildcard character in your filename? That would cause the last line to get this error.

 

[asd1234qwerty]

this is all of the code that i am using. when it asks for the file, i simply enter 'text' without the quotations, which is the name of the file which already contains some text in it. Thanks a lot.

echo
echo "file?"
read $file
echo "Enter the new line to add:"
read newline
echo "$newline" >> $file
echo
echo "The new line has been added"
echo "Press any key to continue"
read key

 

[PHV]

Replace this:
read $file
with this:
read file

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[SamBones]

Hmmm ... that's not what was listed in the original post. Kind of tough to help if we're not looking at the code that has the problem.



Oh well, life goes on.

asd1234qwerty, did that solve it?