Files I cannot delete

[eigen]

I have these file located in my /home/me dir. They have some weird random file names and I cannot delete them. To answer the obvious questions I have tried it as root using rm -fr . I think they were generated either by a free space wiper I use or by gpg. Either way I want them gone. Any ideas.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What error do you get?

 

[Nothinman]

You could try running 'rm -i *' and it'll ask you about each file in the directory.

 

[eigen]

Okay when I try it from the gui I get the error Blah does not exit. Now the file name is wierd and had special looking characters in it....I cant type it so I copied ithe filenamefrom the gui. Now when I try rm blah my cl freaks out, then i tried to execute clear and it says command not found then I try again and it works.....

 

[eigen]

Either Firefox or the forum wont let me paste ithe filename here.....

 

[n0cmonkey]

rm 'first_couple_of_characters<TAB>'

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
rm 'first_couple_of_characters<TAB>'

Yeah doesnt even see it that is why I have been having to copy it from the gui.
......

My question is there a file that list the file within a directory one that I could manually edit.

Here is a partial cut and paste of ls -la

drwx------ 3 eigen eigen 4096 Jun 11 16:00 .themes
drwx------ 5 eigen eigen 4096 Sep 18 00:44 .thumbnails
drwx------ 2 eigen eigen 4096 Aug 23 00:22 .Trash
drwxrwxr-x 2 eigen eigen 4096 Aug 5 21:47 .tuxracer
-rw-rw-r-- 1 eigen eigen 0 Aug 29 21:17 ?W?cY?[ku???hs?:???m?}?????????$??k????H??3???c?C??d???b?????F~?;?{?ps???D?:??#??G????????N??{f4?~E#?Is????h'h?=??|?????i??????G?
drwxrwxr-x 7 eigen eigen 4096 Aug 23 15:17 wireless
-rwxr-xr-x 1 eigen eigen 600 Apr 6 2004 Wireless_2.txt
-rw------- 1 eigen eigen 115 Oct 8 21:23 .Xauthority
-rwxr-xr-x 1 eigen eigen 189 Aug 9 16:50 .Xclients
-rwxr-xr-x 1 eigen eigen 188 Aug 9 16:50 .Xclients-default


pretty obviuos what is what

 

[n0cmonkey]

The \ character should escape the wierd characters. If you can actually type the characters, you should be okay. If not, try Nothinman's suggestion.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The \ character should escape the wierd characters. If you can actually type the characters, you should be okay. If not, try Nothinman's suggestion.

The thing is it does not see the files it only list them.For example ls shows them and they also appear in the window manager but if I try and move them (either from GUI or CL) it gives me an error. I have tried all the flags associated with rm and none work.

 

[drag]

There are tricks to dealing with crappy files like that. Some of them are pretty low level stuff.

Maybe try something like:

ls |grep ku

If that makes only that name appear, then go:

rm -rf `ls |grep ku`

Otherwise try something like
rm -rf \?W\?cY\?\[ku\?\?\?hs\?\:\?\?\?m\?\}\?\?\?\?\?\?\?\?\?\$\?\?k\?\?\?\?H\?\?3\?\?\?c\?C\?\?d\?\?\?b\?\?\?\?\?F\~\?\;\?\{\?ps\?\?\?D\?\:\?\?\#\?\?G\?\?\?\?\?\?\?\?N\?\?\{f4\?\~E\#\?Is\?\?\?\?h\'h\?\=\?\?\|\?\?\?\?\?i\?\?\?\?\?\?G\?

or something like:
rm -rf '?W?cY?[ku???hs?:???m?}?????????$??k????H??3???c?C??d???b?????F~?;?{?ps???D?:??#??G????????N??{f4?~E#?Is????h'h?=??|?????i??????G? '
You see all the ? are wildcards for one letter. Like * is for many characters. $ # and other characters all mean special things, too. You can type them out and deal with them as regular characters if you want, but you have to put the \ before them to deal with the names.

Samething with spaces.
touch cool\ dog
will make a file "cool dog"
but if you go:
touch cool dog
it will make a file "cool" and then a file "dog"

Also when you put single qoutes around something it means to take it literally.

For example go:
echo $PATH
echo "$PATH"
echo '$PATH'
echo `$PATH`

to see what the different quotes do.

 

[Nothinman]

'rm -i *' is still the easiest.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Have you tried deleting the file while in single user mode (telinit 1)?

 

[Nothinman]

Have you tried deleting the file while in single user mode (telinit 1)?

That won't make a difference, the file locking doesn't work the same as it does on Windows. On unix you can delete any files you have the rights to do so with, whether they're opened or not. The only way that might be necessary is if the filesystem is damaged and needs a fsck run.

 

[Klixxer]

Nothingman is right, a fsck run would be the first thing you should try, then rm -i * again.