ANDs and APOSTROPHIES won't let me delete files!!!! :(

SlowCoder · 05-19-2009, 01:39 PM

In cleaning up some files, I found a few that have &'s and apostrophies in the filename. These characters are not allowing me to delete or move, nor can I rename these files.

How do I get rid of these files?

Matir · 05-19-2009, 02:00 PM

Did you escape the filenames, or use quotes as appropriate? I can delete, move, copy, and perform other operations on such files just fine. Which shell are you using?

SlowCoder · 05-19-2009, 03:47 PM

Here's an example with both &'s and apostrophies:

Code:

$ ls -lah
drwxr-xr-x 2 myuser myuser 4.0K 2009-05-19 14:21 Daniel & Wm's Favorites
$ rmdir 'Daniel & Wm'\''s Favorites'/
rmdir: Daniel & Wm's Favorites/: Permission denied

Can you help me with the escape sequences?

yancek · 05-19-2009, 04:03 PM

I created a file named: Daniel & Wm's Favorites
and deleted it with command: rm "Daniel & Wm's Favorites"

Did the same with a directory which also worked, double quotes. Don't think that is the problem. Your error is "permission denied", I'd check for write permissions on the parent folder or do it as root.

SlowCoder · 05-19-2009, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

I created a file named: Daniel & Wm's Favorites
and deleted it with command: rm "Daniel & Wm's Favorites"

Did the same with a directory which also worked, double quotes. Don't think that is the problem. Your error is "permission denied", I'd check for write permissions on the parent folder or do it as root.

Geez. I was reading "permission denied" as it was having trouble rendering the filenames, and throwing a generic error. Not that there were actual permissions errors. I had checked permissions a couple of directories back and they were correct. But these files were nested about 6 directories in. I did find one that, for some reason, was marked read-only. I reset it, and was able to delete the tree.

Hence, you were correct, and I have thanked you.

Matir · 05-19-2009, 07:14 PM

I guess I should've asked about "not allowing". Glad to see yancek picking that one up.