UnExpected file names

[Rahul47]

I dont know what caused such a filenames and i am not able to remove these files.

 $ ls
A????cd new????cat>  >> A  A????cd new????cat ????A  Desktop    Downloads  file.sh      menu.sh  new       new1.sh  new.sh         Pictures  rename     Videos
A????cd new????cat |A      A?echo A                  Documents  even.sh    filetest.sh  Music    new1.lst  new.lst  palindrome.sh  Public    Templates  vowel.sh

Please Suggest

[rch1231]

Hello,

I am not sure what caused the file names however you can look back throught your command history by typing history at the command prompt.

To remove the files I suggest you use something like:
/bin/rm -i /full_path_to_directory/*

The -i will cause rm to prompt you about deleting each file.
You might want to use ls -la instead of ls to review the directory listing so you get one file per line and more details on the file size, permissions and date modified.

[rubberman]

Since this is in the subject "Shell Programming", I have to assume you are running some varient of Linux, and most likely the bash shell? Linux supports just about any character in a file name, including question marks. If an application wants to create a file with such a name, then it can (usually). The problem starts when trying to scan for these files in a bash script since question marks are wild card characters in bash. To match a real question mark, you have to "escape" them - preceed the question mark character with a backslash. The suggestion by rch1231 is not a bad idea. The rm command will ask you if you want to delete each file in that directory. The only problem is when there are a lot of files with those names. Given that Linux directories can easily contain hundreds, or even thousands of files, that could be quite tedious! :-)

[Rahul47]

@rch1231:
Listing directories using ls -la

$ ls -la
total 29884
drwxr-xr-x 30 nick nick     4096 May  4 22:32 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     4096 Oct 15  2012 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick        0 May  4 06:44 A????cd new????cat>  >> A
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick        0 May  4 06:40 A????cd new????cat |A
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick        0 May  4 06:43 A????cd new????cat ????A
drwx------  3 nick nick     4096 Oct 23  2012 .adobe
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick        0 May  4 06:46 A?echo A
-rwxr-xr-x  1 nick nick      894 May  5 19:47 asc.sh
-rw-------  1 nick nick     5949 May  7 11:53 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick      220 Oct 15  2012 .bash_logout

[Rahul47]

@rch1231:

Using rm -i

$ rm -i A????cd new????cat |A
rm: cannot remove A????cd': No such file or directory rm: cannot removenew????cat': No such file or directory
A: command not found

[rch1231]

Hello,

Rubberman was right about having to escape the ? in the file names and you will have to do that for the spaces also. Try this to get rid of one of the file A????cd new????cat> >> A:

/bin/rm -i A\?\?\?\?cd\ new\?\?\?\?cat\> \ \>\>\ A

As an example of what the shell can autofill in for you try typing and do not hit enter:
/bin/rm -i A\?e

and then hit the <TAB> key the shell will try to fill as much of a unique name as it can and you should get this:
/bin/rm -i A\?echo\ A
If you hit enter now it should prompt you to remove the file.

[all4n]

Actually, in most shells, the question mark is a wildcard that represents any single character, so you should not have to escape it unless the resulting substitution could also match the name of a legit file in the directory. If you look at the error message closely, you will see that the problem is caused by the spaces in the filename - which must be escaped.
Escaping the question mark is necessary, though, if you want to restrict your selection of files to those that contain the question mark. For example: rm -i *\?* This allows you to pursue the solution proposed by rch1231 while avoiding the problem that rubberman warned of.

[CrazyDieter]

something like

ls | grep ? | sed -e s/\?/\\\\?/ | xargs rm

might do the trick : it list the badly named files, escapes the question mark, before passing the files to the rm command.

[Rahul47]

Thanx guys.