Solved Heredoc within a function

[balanga]

I'm trying to use functions in a shell script and can't get a heredoc within a function working.

func1()
{
cat <<EOF >abc
cd /
ls -al
EOF
}

func1

I get end of file unexpected (expecting "}")

Any ideas?

 

[gotnull]

Any ideas?

Could be a missing close bracket somewhere.

I tried your function, it works, after executing the following script there is a file abc with the expected content in it.

01 : ls
file1                file2                test_here_doc_in_func.sh
01 :
01 : cat test_here_doc_in_func.sh
#!/bin/sh
func1()
{
cat <<EOF >abc
cd /
ls -al
EOF
}

func1
01 :
01 : sh test_here_doc_in_func.sh
01 :
01 : ls
abc                file1                file2                test_here_doc_in_func.sh
01 :
01 : cat abc
cd /
ls -al
01 :

 

[balanga]

Actually the code I posted was not correctly laid out, I had problems pasting from my editor...
It should have looked like this:-

func1()
{
    cat <<EOF >abc
    cd /
    ls -al
    EOF
}

func1

I've now discovered that it's the indentation which triggers the error, and more specfically the indentation of EOF.

Thanks for comfirming that it did work normally for you.

 

[Erichans]

Yes, and the restrictions about "the ending" extend even further than indentation.
The POSIX - Shell Command Language at 2.7.4 Here-Document (my bolding}:

2.7.4 Here-Document

The redirection operators "<<" and "<<-" both allow redirection of subsequent lines read by the shell to the input of a command. The redirected lines are known as a "here-document".

The here-document shall be treated as a single word that begins after the next <newline> and continues until there is a line containing only the delimiter and a <newline>, with no <blank> characters in between. Then the next here-document starts, if there is one. The format is as follows:

[n]<<word
here-document
delimiter
...

 

[balanga]

This what caught to out:-

The here-document shall be treated as a single word that begins after the next <newline> and continues until there is a line containing only the delimiter and a <newline>

I had a space or tab preceding the delimiter.