Shell script error – bad interpreter messages and solution

by on November 8, 2006 · 3 comments· last updated at November 8, 2006

. I have downloaded some shell script but when I try to run these shell scripts I get error bad interpreter... How do I fix this error?

A. Make sure you have required shell installed. Each shell script specifies default interpreter at top of the script. For example, consider following script:
#!/bin/sh
# This is...
clear
A=`pwd`
...
.....
...

#!/bin/sh is default interpreter to execute this script. Use ls command to verify that you have /bin/sh installed
$ ls /bin/sh

If /bin/sh is not installed, use rpm, up2date or apt-get command to install required shell.

Another problem is if script was edited or written on MS-DOS platform, you will see CR/CRLF in script. Use dos2unix command to convert theses scripts to UNIX format.
dos2unix script-file-name



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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 gautam rampal February 23, 2009 at 7:03 am

thanks a lot my problem got solved, i tried all the ways when i used dos2unix it worked, I forgot that i edited the script previously in windows.

Reply

2 Cui August 11, 2009 at 11:39 pm

where do you use dos2unix?
I could not use it in command prompt and in unix
is there a dos2linux command?
thanks!

Reply

3 Mitra October 21, 2011 at 9:40 am

Thanks alot…it saves lot of time…

Reply

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