Read: line 6: illegal option -e

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

For some reason read -e isn't working in my script. I need a directory as input from a user and I'd like for them to be able to use tab complete which is why I'm using -e. When the script is run, I get:

read: line 6: illegal option -e

In order to just figure out what is going on with the -e option I made a small test script that gives the error:

#!/bin/bash

set -e

echo "This is a test."
read -e dir

echo $dir

Anyone know why I would be getting the illegal option -e?

or is there another way to get tab complete for the user input?

2

Specifically, which operating system are you using? Exactly how are you invoking the script? What is the mode (file permissions) of the script file?

Regards and welcome to the forum,
Alister

3

when I run /proc/version I get:

Linux version 2.6.31.8 (@) (gcc version 4.3.2 (sdk3.3-ct-ng-1.4.1) ) #1 Tue Jul 24 18:11:21 PDT 2012

I've done a chmod 777 and a chmod +x to the file.

and to run it I've tried:
./test.sh
sh test.sh
bash test.sh

all resulting in the same error.

---------- Post updated at 05:30 PM ---------- Previous update was at 11:59 AM ----------

Nobody has any ideas?

Is there another way to get tab complete to work with the user input without "-e"?

4

Can you change set -e on line 3 to set -x and post the output.

5

You may have an old version of bash which doesn't support -e.

And, no.