error in Unix (scripts)

Question

somebody knows what does this error mean? Missing -. in google I found nothing about this

I'm using C-Shell, I wrote some script, but can't run it cause have this error — lego69, Jun 02 '10 at 13:06
There are quite few people with telepathy are here. Could you post your script listing? — nkrkv, Jun 02 '10 at 13:10

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 23 '11 at 01:45

The only case where tcsh can produce that error message is when you're trying to substitute a range of words from an array variable, and the selector is syntactically incorrect.

Quoting the tcsh man page:

   $name[selector]
   ${name[selector]}
           Substitutes  only  the  selected  words from the value of name.
           The selector is subjected to `$' substitution and  may  consist
           of  a  single  number  or  two numbers separated by a `-'.  The
           first word of a variable's value is numbered `1'.  If the first
           number  of  a range is omitted it defaults to `1'.  If the last
           member of a range is omitted  it  defaults  to  `$#name'.   The
           selector `*' selects all words.  It is not an error for a range
           to be empty if the second argument is omitted or in range.

For example:

$ echo $path[5-6]
/usr/sbin /usr/bin
$ echo $path[5_6]
Missing -.

Perhaps if you had followed up when you were asked for more information (like, say, some code from the failing script), it wouldn't have taken over a year to get an answer.

error in Unix (scripts)

1 Answers1