utterly confused regarding bash script command line arguments

Question

I have the following bash script file callee.sh which is being called from another script file caller.sh.

The callee.sh is as follows:

if [ $1 -eq  1 ];
then    
    echo  inside $1
    source ~/MYPROGRAMSRC/standAloneWordCount.sh $2
    #echo "inside standalone branch"
    #echo $1

elif [  $1 -eq  2  ];
then
    #echo "inside distributed branch"
    #echo $1

else
    echo invalid option for first argument-\n Options:\n "distributed"\n or\n "standalone"\n 


fi  

As most people might be able to tell, this is a script I use to decide whether to run hadoop in distributed or standAlone mode depending on the arguments.

This script is called from caller.sh as follows

source callee.sh $2 $counterGlobal

where $2 is a number either 1 or 2 and $counterGlobal is some integer.

My problem is that the if condition in callee.sh never evaluates to True and hence my script standAloneWordCount.sh which I call from within callee.sh is never called. I am running with bash shell and have tried many variants of the if statement like:

if [ $(($1 == 1 )) ]  -- (1)

In an echo statement just above the line -- (1) , the expression $(($1 == 1)) evaluates to 1 so I am baffled as to why I am unable to satisfy the if condition.

Also I keep getting the error where it says:

syntax error near unexpected token `else'

if anyone could help me out with these two errors, it would be much appreciated. As I've run out of ideas.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

have tried many variants of the if statement like:

if [ $(($1 == 1 )) ]

You should instead be saying:

if (($1 == 1)); then
  ...
fi

---

Regarding the Syntax error near unexpected token else'`, it's not because of any code that you've shown above. It seems to originate from some other portion of your script.

Answer 2

If you're using bash, try using double square brackets:

if [[ $1 -eq 1 ]]; then
    echo "inside 1"
fi

As for the syntax error , you need quotes around your text (which also means escaping the existing quotes or use single quotes):

echo -e "invalid option for first argument-\n Options:\n \"distributed\"\n or\n \"standalone\"\n"

The -e flag is there to let bash know you want the \\n to evaluate to a newline.