"/system/bin/sh: 语法错误: '(' unexpected" 在ADB中指定文件时

Question

I have been messing around with adb lately, mostly the push command. it is a life saver when the phone doesn't want to mount like a flash drive. lately I have been loading audio files onto the phone and discovered a neat one-liner that can make the phone PLAY the audio from the lock screen. tried it and it worked flawlessly on a file called "Wolves.mp3" in /storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/ , but when I tried a file called Coyote (group).mp3 it gives the error saying:

/system/bin/sh: syntax error: '(' unexpected

I tried many different solutions, such as changing from file:///storage/... to just /storage/... , escaping symbols according to this site , which only drove me to further confusion. I even tried using the common \ to escape the symbols /storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/Coyote\ \(group\).mp3 but even that gave the exact same error.

edit

the command I have been running looks like this:

[jaz@Jaz-Jackson ~]$ adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote (group).mp3 -t audio/mp3

Answer 1

Hey I figured it out!!!

knowing the file:// protocol is for hyperlink structures, I remembered that your usual urls would replace the space symbol with the string %20 , so I pushed this song to my other phone, and replaced the spaces with %20, and off it went, now I just have to replace ALL special symbols such as ()[]{}-+!@#$%^&* with their hyperlink equivalents, and that should resolve all my issues!

[jaz@Jaz-Jackson]$ adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "file:///storage/self/primary/Music/Ra%20Ra%20RasPutin.mp3" -t audio/mp3
Starting: Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=file:///storage/self/primary/Music/Ra Ra RasPutin.mp3 typ=audio/mp3 }

yes. the only song i could find in my music that didn't have any special symbols was Ra Ra RasPutin. it works though!

Answer 2

Working solution:

1. When directly using adb command solution is:
   adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote \(group\).mp3 -t audio/mp3

Explanation: Here adb is used from android shell and shell has special meaning for ()round brackets and thus above error occurs. Thereby escaping brackets will solve it.

2. When using xargs with adb command:
   echo "file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote (group).mp3" | xargs -n1 -I {} adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "{}" -t audio/mp3

But here echo "file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote \(group\).mp3" | xargs -n1 -I {} adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "{}" -t audio/mp3 Error: /system/bin/sh: Unexpected '(' echo "file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote \(group\).mp3" | xargs -n1 -I {} adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "{}" -t audio/mp3 Error: /system/bin/sh: Unexpected '(' will not work.

Because one time round bracket is escaped with backslash and that solves the android shell problem but the backslash act as special charater for xargs computer shell and hence it also needs to be escaped. So Solution will be: echo "file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote \\(group\\).mp3" | xargs -n1 -I {} adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "{}" -t audio/mp3 echo "file:///storage/emulated/legacy/Downloads/coyote \\(group\\).mp3" | xargs -n1 -I {} adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "{}" -t audio/mp3