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6.11 Why does Bash crash?

Q: Bash crashes on me when I invoke shell scripts....

Q: Why does Bash say "pipe error: Access denied" when I try to run two programs via a pipe?

Q: When I run certain complex shell scripts, Bash sometimes prints a message saying "Cannot make a child for command substitution: (null)". What gives??

Q: What does it mean when Bash says "Can't make pipes for command substitution!"?

A: If Bash crashes when you invoke shell scripts, check whether those scripts have #!/bin/sh on their first line. If they do, the most probable reason for the crashes is that you don't have sh.exe anywhere on your PATH (it does not have to be in /bin!). Either copy bash.exe into sh.exe, or create a "symlink" to bash.exe, like this:

 ln -s c:/djgpp/bin/bash.exe c:/djgpp/bin/sh.exe

(replace c:/djgpp with the actual pathname of your DJGPP installation).

Error messages about pipes and command substitution usually mean that your TMPDIR environment variable points to an invalid drive; make sure TMPDIR is set and points to an existing directory, and that the drive where it points is writable and not full. Old ports of Bash had problems with `command` substitution, so make sure you have the latest binaries.