Ambiguous redirect bash ошибка

asked Mar 17, 2010 at 13:08

Bash can be pretty obtuse sometimes.

The following commands all return different error messages for basically the same error:

$ echo hello >
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline`

$ echo hello > ${NONEXISTENT}
bash: ${NONEXISTENT}: ambiguous redirect

$ echo hello > "${NONEXISTENT}"
bash: : No such file or directory

Adding quotes around the variable seems to be a good way to deal with the «ambiguous redirect» message: You tend to get a better message when you’ve made a typing mistake — and when the error is due to spaces in the filename, using quotes is the fix.

Do you have a variable named OUPUT_RESULTS or is it the more likely OUTPUT_RESULTS?

michael@isolde:~/junk$ ABC=junk.txt
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" > $ABC
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" >> $ABB
bash: $ABB: ambiguous redirect
michael@isolde:~/junk$ 

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

put quotes around your variable. If it happens to have spaces, it will give you «ambiguous redirect» as well. also check your spelling

echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG  >>  "${OUPUT_RESULTS}"

eg of ambiguous redirect

$ var="file with spaces"
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> ${var}
bash: ${var}: ambiguous redirect
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> "${var}"
$ cat file with spaces
aaaa     dddd         mol_tag

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:14

I’ve recently found that blanks in the name of the redirect file will cause the «ambiguous redirect» message.

For example if you redirect to application$(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S).log and you specify the wrong formatting characters, the redirect will fail before 10 AM for example. If however, you used application$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).log it would succeed. This is because the %k format yields ' 9' for 9AM where %H yields '09' for 9AM.

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S) gives 20140626 95138

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) gives 20140626095138

The erroneous date might give something like:

echo "a" > myapp20140626 95138.log

where the following is what would be desired:

echo "a" > myapp20140626095138.log

Does the path specified in ${OUPUT_RESULTS} contain any whitespace characters? If so, you may want to consider using ... >> "${OUPUT_RESULTS}" (using quotes).

(You may also want to consider renaming your variable to ${OUTPUT_RESULTS})

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

enharmonicenharmonic

1,54514 silver badges28 bronze badges

If you are here trying to debug this «ambiguous redirect» error with GitHub Actions. I highly suggest trying it this way:

echo "MY_VAR=foobar" >> $GITHUB_ENV

The behavior I experienced with $GITHUB_ENV is that, it adds it to the pipeline environment variables as my example shows MY_VAR

answered Jul 6, 2022 at 11:58

One other thing that can cause «ambiguous redirect» is t n r in the variable name you are writing too

Maybe not nr? But err on the side of caution

Try this

echo "a" > ${output_name//[$'tnr']}

I got hit with this one while parsing HTML, Tabs t at the beginning of the line.

This might be the case too.

you have not specified the file in a variable and redirecting output to it, then bash will throw this error.

files=`ls`
out_file = /path/to/output_file.t
for i in `echo "$files"`;
do
    content=`cat $i` 
    echo "${content}  ${i}" >> ${out_file}
done

out_file variable is not set up correctly so keep an eye on this too.
BTW this code is printing all the content and its filename on the console.

answered Jan 8, 2020 at 8:54

spectrumspectrum

3593 silver badges11 bronze badges

answered Oct 20, 2019 at 2:41

Frank NFrank N

9,2684 gold badges76 silver badges107 bronze badges

EricEric

20.9k18 gold badges143 silver badges184 bronze badges

asked Mar 17, 2010 at 13:08

Bash can be pretty obtuse sometimes.

The following commands all return different error messages for basically the same error:

$ echo hello >
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline`

$ echo hello > ${NONEXISTENT}
bash: ${NONEXISTENT}: ambiguous redirect

$ echo hello > "${NONEXISTENT}"
bash: : No such file or directory

Adding quotes around the variable seems to be a good way to deal with the «ambiguous redirect» message: You tend to get a better message when you’ve made a typing mistake — and when the error is due to spaces in the filename, using quotes is the fix.

Do you have a variable named OUPUT_RESULTS or is it the more likely OUTPUT_RESULTS?

michael@isolde:~/junk$ ABC=junk.txt
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" > $ABC
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" >> $ABB
bash: $ABB: ambiguous redirect
michael@isolde:~/junk$ 

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

put quotes around your variable. If it happens to have spaces, it will give you «ambiguous redirect» as well. also check your spelling

echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG  >>  "${OUPUT_RESULTS}"

eg of ambiguous redirect

$ var="file with spaces"
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> ${var}
bash: ${var}: ambiguous redirect
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> "${var}"
$ cat file with spaces
aaaa     dddd         mol_tag

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:14

I’ve recently found that blanks in the name of the redirect file will cause the «ambiguous redirect» message.

For example if you redirect to application$(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S).log and you specify the wrong formatting characters, the redirect will fail before 10 AM for example. If however, you used application$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).log it would succeed. This is because the %k format yields ' 9' for 9AM where %H yields '09' for 9AM.

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S) gives 20140626 95138

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) gives 20140626095138

The erroneous date might give something like:

echo "a" > myapp20140626 95138.log

where the following is what would be desired:

echo "a" > myapp20140626095138.log

Does the path specified in ${OUPUT_RESULTS} contain any whitespace characters? If so, you may want to consider using ... >> "${OUPUT_RESULTS}" (using quotes).

(You may also want to consider renaming your variable to ${OUTPUT_RESULTS})

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

enharmonicenharmonic

1,54514 silver badges28 bronze badges

If you are here trying to debug this «ambiguous redirect» error with GitHub Actions. I highly suggest trying it this way:

echo "MY_VAR=foobar" >> $GITHUB_ENV

The behavior I experienced with $GITHUB_ENV is that, it adds it to the pipeline environment variables as my example shows MY_VAR

answered Jul 6, 2022 at 11:58

One other thing that can cause «ambiguous redirect» is t n r in the variable name you are writing too

Maybe not nr? But err on the side of caution

Try this

echo "a" > ${output_name//[$'tnr']}

I got hit with this one while parsing HTML, Tabs t at the beginning of the line.

This might be the case too.

you have not specified the file in a variable and redirecting output to it, then bash will throw this error.

files=`ls`
out_file = /path/to/output_file.t
for i in `echo "$files"`;
do
    content=`cat $i` 
    echo "${content}  ${i}" >> ${out_file}
done

out_file variable is not set up correctly so keep an eye on this too.
BTW this code is printing all the content and its filename on the console.

answered Jan 8, 2020 at 8:54

spectrumspectrum

3593 silver badges11 bronze badges

answered Oct 20, 2019 at 2:41

Frank NFrank N

9,2684 gold badges76 silver badges107 bronze badges

EricEric

20.9k18 gold badges143 silver badges184 bronze badges

asked Mar 17, 2010 at 13:08

Bash can be pretty obtuse sometimes.

The following commands all return different error messages for basically the same error:

$ echo hello >
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline`

$ echo hello > ${NONEXISTENT}
bash: ${NONEXISTENT}: ambiguous redirect

$ echo hello > "${NONEXISTENT}"
bash: : No such file or directory

Adding quotes around the variable seems to be a good way to deal with the «ambiguous redirect» message: You tend to get a better message when you’ve made a typing mistake — and when the error is due to spaces in the filename, using quotes is the fix.

Do you have a variable named OUPUT_RESULTS or is it the more likely OUTPUT_RESULTS?

michael@isolde:~/junk$ ABC=junk.txt
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" > $ABC
michael@isolde:~/junk$ echo "Booger" >> $ABB
bash: $ABB: ambiguous redirect
michael@isolde:~/junk$ 

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

put quotes around your variable. If it happens to have spaces, it will give you «ambiguous redirect» as well. also check your spelling

echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG  >>  "${OUPUT_RESULTS}"

eg of ambiguous redirect

$ var="file with spaces"
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> ${var}
bash: ${var}: ambiguous redirect
$ echo $AAAA"     "$DDDD"         "$MOL_TAG >> "${var}"
$ cat file with spaces
aaaa     dddd         mol_tag

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:14

I’ve recently found that blanks in the name of the redirect file will cause the «ambiguous redirect» message.

For example if you redirect to application$(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S).log and you specify the wrong formatting characters, the redirect will fail before 10 AM for example. If however, you used application$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).log it would succeed. This is because the %k format yields ' 9' for 9AM where %H yields '09' for 9AM.

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%k%M%S) gives 20140626 95138

echo $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) gives 20140626095138

The erroneous date might give something like:

echo "a" > myapp20140626 95138.log

where the following is what would be desired:

echo "a" > myapp20140626095138.log

Does the path specified in ${OUPUT_RESULTS} contain any whitespace characters? If so, you may want to consider using ... >> "${OUPUT_RESULTS}" (using quotes).

(You may also want to consider renaming your variable to ${OUTPUT_RESULTS})

answered Mar 17, 2010 at 13:13

enharmonicenharmonic

1,54514 silver badges28 bronze badges

If you are here trying to debug this «ambiguous redirect» error with GitHub Actions. I highly suggest trying it this way:

echo "MY_VAR=foobar" >> $GITHUB_ENV

The behavior I experienced with $GITHUB_ENV is that, it adds it to the pipeline environment variables as my example shows MY_VAR

answered Jul 6, 2022 at 11:58

One other thing that can cause «ambiguous redirect» is t n r in the variable name you are writing too

Maybe not nr? But err on the side of caution

Try this

echo "a" > ${output_name//[$'tnr']}

I got hit with this one while parsing HTML, Tabs t at the beginning of the line.

This might be the case too.

you have not specified the file in a variable and redirecting output to it, then bash will throw this error.

files=`ls`
out_file = /path/to/output_file.t
for i in `echo "$files"`;
do
    content=`cat $i` 
    echo "${content}  ${i}" >> ${out_file}
done

out_file variable is not set up correctly so keep an eye on this too.
BTW this code is printing all the content and its filename on the console.

answered Jan 8, 2020 at 8:54

spectrumspectrum

3593 silver badges11 bronze badges

answered Oct 20, 2019 at 2:41

Frank NFrank N

9,2684 gold badges76 silver badges107 bronze badges

EricEric

20.9k18 gold badges143 silver badges184 bronze badges