On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 08:31:30PM +0200, Florian Mayer wrote: > I want to add up all numbers from 1 to 10,
sum=0; for ((i=1; i<=10; i++)); do ((sum+=i)); done > but when I do > $ echo $(({1,10}???+??? +0)) # with a space between the first + and the > second one I cannot figure out what you actually typed here, because your UTF-8 characters have been replaced by three question marks in my mail client. What I see is literally: echo $(({1,10}???+??? +0)) You should NOT be entering UTF-8 characters into bash commands, unless they're literal characters that are part of a string that you want to store or print or pass as an argument. They should certainly not be part of an arithmetic expression. > I get an error: > bash: ((: 1+ ,3 10+ ,3: syntax error: operand expected (error token is ",3 > 10+ ,3???) So you are trying to be CLEVER? You are trying to trick bash into executing code that generates code that will then be evaluated? And you didn't even explictly call eval? I really, very strongly, discourage you from pursuing this line of solutions. Generating code with the intent to eval it is NOT the way to go for a simple arithmetic problem. Just use a loop.