# Capistrano deploy failing with :if Expression Syntax failure

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-deploy-failing-with-if-expression-syntax-failure/66757>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 29, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-deploy-failing-with-if-expression-syntax-failure/66757 "2006-08-29T00:49:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/maui)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-deploy-failing-with-if-expression-syntax-failure/66757/1 "2006-08-29T00:49:08Z")

</div>

Hi everyone,

I’m attempting to setup Capistrano for the first time. I’ve  
successfully run

rake remote:exec ACTION=“setup”

However, every time I run rake deploy I get the following error:

[root@www2 ~/src/ideeli/trunk/log]# rake deploy  
(in /root/src/ideeli/trunk)  
loading configuration  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-1.1.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/standard.rb  
loading configuration ./config/deploy.rb  
loading configuration  
#Proc:0x08f74508@/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel\_cluster-0.2.0/lib/mongrel\_cluster/recipes.rb:1

- executing task deploy  
\*\* transaction: start
- executing task update\_code
- querying latest revision…
- executing “if [[ ! -d  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 ]]; then\n  
/usr/local/bin/svn co -q -r142  
svn://216.12.167.103/ideeli/trunk  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 &&\n  
(test -e /usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log || touch  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log && chmod 666  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log) && echo `date +\"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S\"` $USER 142 20060828223656 \>\>  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log;\n fi”  
servers: [“216.12.167.103”]  
Password:  
[216.12.167.103] executing command  
\*\* [out :: 216.12.167.103] if: Expression Syntax.  
command finished  
\*\*\* [update\_code] transaction: rollback
- [update\_code] rolling back
- executing “rm -rf  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656”  
servers: [“216.12.167.103”]  
[216.12.167.103] executing command  
command finished  
rake aborted!  
command “if [[ ! -d  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 ]]; then\\n  
/usr/local/bin/svn co -q -r142  
svn://216.12.167.103/ideeli/trunk  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 &&\\n  
(test -e /usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log || touch  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log && chmod 666  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log) && echo `date +\"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S\"` $USER 142 20060828223656 \>\>  
/usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log;\\n fi”  
failed on 216.12.167.103

(See full trace by running task with --trace)

As you can see the error it craps out on is :if, Expression Syntax.  
I’m basically following the example in the Capistrano manual so I  
haven’t been messing around with anything tricky.

Can anyone shed some light on what’s going on?

Thanks,

Mark

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/maui)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-deploy-failing-with-if-expression-syntax-failure/66757/2 "2006-08-29T12:38:08Z")

</div>

maui wrote:

> /usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 ]]; then\n  
> /usr/local/bin/svn co -q -r142  
> svn://216.12.167.103/ideeli/trunk  
> /usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/releases/20060828223656 &&\n  
> (test -e /usr/local/www/rails\_apps/ideeli/revisions.log || touch

The trailing '\n’s look weird, but I don’t have a cap install to hand to  
try it out, so it could be that they are there all the time.

Alan

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@maui](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/maui)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/capistrano-deploy-failing-with-if-expression-syntax-failure/66757/3 "2006-08-29T19:46:04Z")

</div>

I found the problem. The target box was running csh as the default  
shell and the if syntax wasn’t valid for csh. Once I converted the  
default shell to bash everything worked fine. Now, off the file a  
Capistrano bug.