How do I cd into a directory with a leading backslash?
 

Say I'm here:

/home/me/

ls -l:

drwxrwxrwx 2 me me 4.0K Apr 10 22:57 \folder/

how do I cd into \folder/ ?

cg

cd "\folder"

Afraid not, I get:

-bash: cd: \folder: No such file or directory

cd

tried cd \\folder?

Yep, the same error message!

cg

Are you sure there are no hidden characters or anything in the directory name, just a backslash? \\folder works for me.

You could start the name and use the tab key to complete it.
For example: cd \\fold<tab>

I use zsh as opposed to bash but 'cd \\dir' works fine here. Maybe this, it's worked for me before when typos lead to weird directory names.

Nope that didn't work.

cg

...or that.

cg :cry:

It could well be, how do I go about checking? Is there not an elaborate work around similar to:

ls -l | grep me | awk '{print $9)' | xargs cd

?

cg

To check, you can do: 'ls -Q'

This will show any control characters in an octal-encoded form.

Let us know what this shows.

Thanks, but it reports all is well:

was the output the folder is called: \240

This is driving me nuts! I can neither delete or cd into this directory...

cg

Maybe this helps, when I type cd then hit tab it brings up a list of choices, one of them is:

There is a deliberate space there before the / as that's what the output is. I've tried cd " /" but it doesn't work.

cg

Ok using vim (ahhh vim) to view the directory structure it labels the directory as:

surely that'll help someone figure this out.

cg