Why is bash not behaving consistently?

[Stephanus Fengler]

Paul Howarth wrote:

> Dan Track wrote:
>
>> I was writing this little bash script using find and I came along this
>> difference from using the same command on the command line and in bash
>> script.
>>
>> Basically on the command line I have to type:
>>
>> /usr/bin/find /opt/yum/packages/ -mtime +2 -a \( -regex .*.rpm -o
>> -regex .*.hdr \) -exec ls -lrt {} \;
>>
>> whereas , in a bash script I have to type:
>>
>> /usr/bin/find /opt/yum/packages/ -mtime +2 -a ( -regex .*.rpm -o
>> -regex .*.hdr ) -exec ls -lrt {} ;
>>
>> As you can see I need to escape parenthesis and semi-colons on the
>> command line but I don't need to do that in a bash script.
>>
>> Is there a reason for this?
>
>
> How are you running this script? I would expect the first version to 
> work on the command-line and in a script, and the second version not 
> to work at all...
>
> Paul.
>
Maybe your standard script interpreter isn't bash but simply sh? You may 
add
# /bin/bash

as your first line to make sure bash is used.

Stephanus