Jenkins: Pipeline sh bad substitution error - bash

Question

A step in my pipeline uploads a .tar to an artifactory server. I am getting a Bad substitution error when passing in env.BUILD_NUMBER, but the same commands works when the number is hard coded. The script is written in groovy through jenkins and is running in the jenkins workspace.
sh 'curl -v --user user:password --data-binary ${buildDir}package${env.BUILD_NUMBER}.tar -X PUT "http://artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/release-packages/package${env.BUILD_NUMBER}.tar"'
returns the errors:
[Pipeline] sh
[Package_Deploy_Pipeline] Running shell script
/var/lib/jenkins/workspace/Package_Deploy_Pipeline#tmp/durable-4c8b7958/script.sh: 2:
/var/lib/jenkins/workspace/Package_Deploy_Pipeline#tmp/durable-4c8b7958/script.sh: Bad substitution
[Pipeline] } //node
[Pipeline] Allocate node : End
[Pipeline] End of Pipeline
ERROR: script returned exit code 2
If hard code in a build number and swap out ${env.BUILD_NUMBER} I get no errors and the code runs successfully.
sh 'curl -v --user user:password --data-binary ${buildDir}package113.tar -X PUT "http://artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/release-packages/package113.tar"'
I use ${env.BUILD_NUMBER} within other sh commands within the same script and have no issues in any other places.

Answer 1

This turned out to be a syntax issue. Wrapping the command in ''s caused ${env.BUILD_NUMBER to be passed instead of its value. I wrapped the whole command in "s and escaped the nested. Works fine now.
sh "curl -v --user user:password --data-binary ${buildDir}package${env.BUILD_NUMBER}.tar -X PUT \"http://artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/release-packages/package${env.BUILD_NUMBER}.tar\""

Answer 2

In order to Pass groovy parameters into bash scripts in Jenkins pipelines (causing sometimes bad substitions) You got 2 options:
The triple double quotes way [ " " " ]
OR
the triple single quotes way [ ' ' ' ]
In triple double quotes you can render the normal parameter from groovy using ${someVariable} ,if it's environment variable ${env.someVariable} , if it's parameters injected into your job ${params.someVariable}
example:
def YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH= "${WORKSPACE}/myApp/"
sh """#!/bin/bash
cd ${YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH}
npm install
"""
In triple single quotes things getting little bit tricky, you can pass the parameter to environment parameter and using it by "\${someVaraiable}" or concating the groovy parameter using ''' + someVaraiable + '''
examples:
def YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH= "${WORKSPACE}/myApp/"
sh '''#!/bin/bash
cd ''' + YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH + '''
npm install
'''
OR
pipeline{
agent { node { label "test" } }
environment {
YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH = "${WORKSPACE}/myapp/"
}
continue...
continue...
continue...
sh '''#!/bin/bash
cd "\${YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH}"
npm install
'''
//OR
sh '''#!/bin/bash
cd "\${env.YOUR_APPLICATION_PATH}"
npm install
'''

Answer 3

Actually, you seem to have misunderstood the env variable. In your sh block, you should access ${BUILD_NUMBER} directly.
Reason/Explanation: env represents the environment inside the script. This environment is used/available directly to anything that is executed, e.g. shell scripts.
Please also pay attention to not write anything to env.*, but use withEnv{} blocks instead.

Answer 4

Usually the most common issue for:
Bad substitution
error is to use sh instead of bash.
Especially when using Jenkins, if you're using Execute shell, make sure your Command starts with shebang, e.g. #!/bin/bash -xe or #!/usr/bin/env bash.

Answer 5

I can definitely tell you, it's all about sh shell and bash shell. I fixed this problem by specifying #!/bin/bash -xe as follows:
node {
stage("Preparing"){
sh'''#!/bin/bash -xe
colls=( col1 col2 col3 )
for eachCol in ${colls[#]}
do
echo $eachCol
done
'''
}
}

Answer 6

I had this same issue when working on a Jenkins Pipeline for Amazon S3 Application upload.
My script was like this:
pipeline {
agent any
parameters {
string(name: 'Bucket', defaultValue: 's3-pipeline-test', description: 'The name of the Amazon S3 Bucket')
string(name: 'Prefix', defaultValue: 'my-website', description: 'Application directory in the Amazon S3 Bucket')
string(name: 'Build', defaultValue: 'public/', description: 'Build directory for the application')
}
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo 'Running build phase'
sh 'npm install' // Install packages
sh 'npm run build' // Build project
sh 'ls' // List project files
}
}
stage('Deploy') {
steps {
echo 'Running deploy phase'
withCredentials([[$class: 'AmazonWebServicesCredentialsBinding', accessKeyVariable: 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID', credentialsId: 'AWSCredentials', secretKeyVariable: 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY']]) {
sh 'aws s3 ls' // List AWS S3 buckets
sh 'aws s3 sync "${params.Build}" s3://"${params.Bucket}/${params.Prefix}" --delete' // Sync project files with AWS S3 Bucket project path
}
}
}
}
post {
success {
echo 'Deployment to Amazon S3 suceeded'
}
failure {
echo 'Deployment to Amazon S3 failed'
}
}
}
Here's how I fixed it:
Seeing that it's an interpolation call of variables, I had to substitute the single quotation marks (' ') in this line of the script:
sh 'aws s3 sync "${params.Build}" s3://"${params.Bucket}/${params.Prefix}" --delete' // Sync project files with AWS S3 Bucket project path
to double quotation marks (" "):
sh "aws s3 sync ${params.Build} s3://${params.Bucket}/${params.Prefix} --delete" // Sync project files with AWS S3 Bucket project path
So my script looked like this afterwards:
pipeline {
agent any
parameters {
string(name: 'Bucket', defaultValue: 's3-pipeline-test', description: 'The name of the Amazon S3 Bucket')
string(name: 'Prefix', defaultValue: 'my-website', description: 'Application directory in the Amazon S3 Bucket')
string(name: 'Build', defaultValue: 'public/', description: 'Build directory for the application')
}
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo 'Running build phase'
sh 'npm install' // Install packages
sh 'npm run build' // Build project
sh 'ls' // List project files
}
}
stage('Deploy') {
steps {
echo 'Running deploy phase'
withCredentials([[$class: 'AmazonWebServicesCredentialsBinding', accessKeyVariable: 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID', credentialsId: 'AWSCredentials', secretKeyVariable: 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY']]) {
sh 'aws s3 ls' // List AWS S3 buckets
sh "aws s3 sync ${params.Build} s3://${params.Bucket}/${params.Prefix} --delete" // Sync project files with AWS S3 Bucket project path
}
}
}
}
post {
success {
echo 'Deployment to Amazon S3 suceeded'
}
failure {
echo 'Deployment to Amazon S3 failed'
}
}
}
That's all
I hope this helps

Answer 7

I was having the issue with showing the {env.MAJOR_VERSION} in an artifactory of jar file . show I approaches by keeping of environment step in Jenkinsfile.
pipeline {
agent any
environment {
MAJOR_VERSION = 1
}
stages {
stage('build') {
steps {
sh 'ant -f build.xml -v'
}
}
}
post {
always{
archiveArtifacts artifacts: 'dist/*.jar', fingerprint: true
}
}
}
I got the issue solved and then it was not showing me bad substitution in my Jenkins build output. so environment step plays a more role in Jenkinsfile.

Answer 8

suggestion from #avivamg didn't worked for me, here is the syntax which works for me:
sh "python3 ${env.WORKSPACE}/package.py --product productname " +
"--build_dir ${release_build_dir} " +
"--signed_product_dir ${signed_product_dir} " +
"--version ${build_version}"

Answer 9

I got similar issue. But my usecase is little different
steps{
sh '''#!/bin/bash -xe
VAR=TRIAL
echo $VAR
if [ -d /var/lib/jenkins/.m2/'\${params.application_name}' ]
then
echo 'working'
echo ${VAR}
else
echo 'not working'
fi
'''
}
}
here I'm trying to declare a variable inside the script and also use a parameter from outside
After trying multiple ways
The following script worked
stage('cleaning com/avizva directory'){
steps{
sh """#!/bin/bash -xe
VAR=TRIAL
echo \$VAR
if [ -d /var/lib/jenkins/.m2/${params.application_name} ]
then
echo 'working'
echo \${VAR}
else
echo 'not working'
fi
"""
}
}
changes made :
Replaced triple single quotes --> triple double quotes
Whenever I want to refer to local variable I used escape character
$VAR --> \$VAR

Answer 10

This caused the error Bad Substitution:
pipeline {
agent any
environment {
DOCKER_IMAGENAME = "mynginx:latest"
DOCKER_FILE_PATH = "./docker"
}
stages {
stage('DockerImage-Build') {
steps {
sh 'docker build -t ${env.DOCKER_IMAGENAME} ${env.DOCKER_FILE_PATH}'
}
}
}
}
This fixed it: replace ' with " on sh command
pipeline {
agent any
environment {
DOCKER_IMAGENAME = "mynginx:latest"
DOCKER_FILE_PATH = "./docker"
}
stages {
stage('DockerImage-Build') {
steps {
sh "docker build -t ${env.DOCKER_IMAGENAME} ${env.DOCKER_FILE_PATH}"
}
}
}
}

Answer 11

The Jenkins Script is failing inside the "sh" command-line E.g:
sh 'npm run build' <-- Fails referring to package.json
Needs to be changed to:
sh 'npm run ng build....'
... ng $PATH is not found by the package.json.