“syntax error near unexpected token `)' ”?

Question

echo "Which number port would you like to power up or down? 1, 2 or 3?"
read string
case "$string" in
    [1]* | [2]* | [3]*) echo "User entered: '$string'" ;;
    *) echo "I don't understand '$string'" ;;
esac

Can anyone shed some light as to why this won't work? New to Bash.

Answer 1

Are you sure you don't have a 'non breakable space' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space )? For instance between *) and echo

Answer 2

I would write it as:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Which number port would you like to power up or down? 1, 2 or 3?"
read string
case "${string}" in
    [123]) echo "User entered: '${string}'" ;;
    *)     echo "I don't understand '${string}'" ;;
esac

Because in your script 11 or 22 and so on is also valid.