I'm not sure why this is happening, but....
I write a small file to output using python - say "this.txt".
If I run ls, or ls -l, it shows up in the listing as this.txt
If i run *.txt it doesn't show up (i'm guessing due to the \ at the end of filename)

I try to cat or open in emacs - nothing happens.

I open it in kedit or kwrite (or gedit, etc...) it opens and I can see the data.

File permissions seem in order rw-r--r-- (i'm the owner so this is ok)

if i use tab to autocmplete, the filename shows up with the '\' at the end of the filename - like this:

$> cat this.txt\ (from typing in 'thi' and hitting tab )

This is how I found it, the '\' is invisible using ls.

Any advice would be appreciated.

The \ character is used when there is a space in a filename. The space would cause the shell to read the filename as more than one input to the command. The \ is called the escape character.

example: this file.txt
when you try to 'ls this file.txt', ls will see is as two files; one called this, and one called file.txt.
so will other command-line applications. when you get to the \, the shell is waiting for the rest of the filename. Try putting a double \ at the end of the filename.

It was an extra space that was appended to the file name when it was being written. When I looked at the code with fresh eyes this morning It was glaringly obvious. Thank you for the quick response - If I hadn't figured it out, this would have definitely pushed me in the right direction.