"Syntax error, word unexpected (expecting ")")"

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Symptom

A cross-compilation build from sources runs into the problem of internal tools like squishidl or conf failing with an "Syntax error":

Compiling configure and build ...
/home/user/squish-embedded/conf: 1: Syntax error: word unexpected (expecting ")")

Possible Cause and Suggested Solution

This is the Unix shell failing to execute an application. In light of cross-compilation the most likely cause is a mixup of hardware architectures.

The helper utilities squishidl or conf will be executed on the host system during the build only. They will not be deployed to the target system. That's why they should not be build with the cross-compiler as specified via the XCXX environment variable.

Useful utilities for investigating this kind of problem:

Determine the architecture of the host system:

uname -m

Compare this expected architecture with the architecture of the problematic executable:

file <path_to_executable>