Shell Programming and Scripting

I have about 11000 files on a hard disk that were generated by copying a directory structure from a dvd. The files are supposed to contain ascii data.

I am unable to read or inspect the contents of several of the files, I receive the error no such file or directory.

I am using cygwin on windows, and JAVA code to read/process the files. I have tried to open the files with textpad binary, but get the message that the file does not exist, after I selected the file from a file open dialog.

The first file that I looked at, fr005.1M was fine.
The rest of the files that I looked at, starting with fr005.1T, do not appear to have any content, but show up with a file size.

Any suggestions on how to determine why there is a file size but no apparent content? Is it possible to extract the ascii data?

Additional information:
Here are some cygwin command outputs to show the situation

Listing of files

Code:

$ ls -l fr005.*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ????????  30331 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.1M
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ????????  21197 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.1T
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ???????? 325696 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.1X
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ????????   1574 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.4
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ????????  19387 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.4M
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ???????? ????????  48368 2009-12-23 09:38 fr005.5M

file fr005.1M has content as seen from the more command

Code:

$ more fr005.1M
A/C 614 Flight  Run 5 "AMBIENT" MNVRCODE:   -1.000 REGIME: -1 TRANS: 0 RDF: RDF
File 2 of 6
etc

file fr005.1T doesn't return anything with command more

Code:

$ more fr005.1T
(No output)

hexdump (and other binary editors) are unable to find the other files

Code:

$ hexdump fr005.1T
hexdump: fr005.1T: No such file or directory

$ hexdump fr005.4
hexdump: fr005.4: No such file or directory

$ hexdump fr005.1X
hexdump: fr005.1X: No such file or directory

$ hexdump fr005.4M
hexdump: fr005.4M: No such file or directory

$ hexdump fr005.5M
hexdump: fr005.5M: No such file or directory

Maybe the files have names with non-printable characters.

You can check it with the od command, what is the output of:

Code:

ls fr005.1T* | od -An -t dC

Thanks for the feedback.
The problem appears to be that I'm opening / processing the file with write permissions.
Since the owner and group are not defined, the file is not opened.

Fixes were
1) Using textpad, open as read only
2) Use chgrp / chown commands to correct group / owner
3) Java: set File as readonly

But you are able to read the first file with the same permissions? That's strange...

Yes, it is strange that the first file had the same properties, and I could read it. In fact, I did open the first file in an editor in order to write the file reader.

Also, I had previously opened that file at work. I keep all my files on encrypted drives, and when I come home the files always have the problem with the owner / group. So there is probably some "hidden" file property setting that resetting the owner or group resets. The accounts at work have different login names than at home, which may be the cause of losing the owner, since the account doesn't exist on the 2nd computer. Same for groups.

I was able to read all files in the end.