Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community

Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: Really weird delete problem
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Really weird delete problem Post 302261014 by Perderabo on Saturday 22nd of November 2008 10:19:05 PM
Old 11-22-2008
Remember that a directory is basicly a table with each entry being a name and an inode. In the usual case of a mysteriously undeletable file the name is some very difficult-to-type string of characters. So we suggest some counter-measure that avoids needing to type the name, such as
cd /directory
rm -i *
There is nothing actually wrong in these cases, we just have a very odd filename.

But notice this:
Code:
root@ubuntu:/home/luser/.local/share/Trash/files/junk# ls -l
ls: cannot access TRUNK_: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access 2006_output.mv: No such file or directory
total 0
?????????? ? ? ? ?                ? 2006_output.m?v
?????????? ? ? ? ?                ? TRUNK_

No odd filename can yield this result. Because the OP succeeded in cd'ing to this directory, he should also have permission to stat(2) the files. A simple "ls -l" should bypass the name problem just a a simple "rm -i *" would. But stat(2) appears to be failing. My guess is that the inode numbers are pointing to unallocated inodes.

In theory, "fsck -f" should fix this, and that is what I would recommend as a start. However, I have not yet encountered this problem in Linux, so I have never tried this myself.
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Weird Problem???

I have a problem I don't understand... I am trying to declare a variable, and then output the results of that variable, couldn't be simpler #!/bin/ksh VAR='Oranges' if then echo "Found Lemons" elif then echo "Found Oranges" fi The output shouold clearly be "Found Oranges", but... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: danhodges99
2 Replies

2. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

weird problem with removing files

I have a few files on my system named: -rw------- -rw-r----- -rw-rw--w- -rwxrw-r-x (Yes, it's really the name of the file, not the access permissions, they're 0 bytes large and all created at the same date/time). I've no idea how they got there but I don't seem to be able to delete them... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: rein
2 Replies

3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to delete a weird file name

Hi, How do I delete a file name that starts with a hypen? e.g. -unix_file_2006_10_3 I always get an erroe when I use rm command. I am using Solaris. Thanks, Hi, One of the Unix books I read to remove this weird file suggest to use: "rm ./-unix_file_2006_10_3" which I did today and file... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: XZOR
3 Replies

4. Solaris

Weird crontab problem

Greetings To All! I am running Solaris 10 in a sparc environment. Here is the deal: In /var/spool/cron/crontabs, there is a cron user named "sys". If I do a crontab -l sys, it returns: # 0 * * * 0-6 /usr/lib/sa/sa1 # 20,40 8-17 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa1 # 5 18 * * 1-5 /usr/lib/sa/sa2... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: RobSand
8 Replies

5. Linux

Help! How to delete weird files ??

Guys, I have two files in a directory with weird permissions, size, owner, date etc... the problem is I canīt delete them! I tried to chmod the files and everything, but nothing seems to work. Anyone got any ideas ??? Look: # ls -l total 1327968579 ?--------- 48 1645863428 2150720025... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: dfs
1 Replies

6. Infrastructure Monitoring

Weird dependency problem!

Hi, I want to install net-snmp-devel package but i have following dependecy problem. It's very odd, i don't get it. One of packages is depended on the other one, the other one is depended on the previous one as well. :S :S Could you help me please? Here are the steps: # ls -l total... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: oduth
4 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

awk weird problem.

awk 'BEGIN{print 1.2.3.4}' 1.20.30.4 Can anyone explain why has extra "0" in the IP address? (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: newoz
3 Replies

8. Programming

A weird problem with POSIX function

Hi all, Sorry for the title because I didn't find a proper name for it. My question is about POSIX functions, such as timer_create(), mq_open() and pthread_create(). void test_queue() { struct mq_attr attr; attr.mq_maxmsg = 10; attr.mq_msgsize = 64; mq_unlink("/my_test_queue");... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: bus147
6 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

[Solved] Weird files to delete

Hi, I created some files with a script and I don't know yet where I did a mistake but the script created some "weird" files... prd01,/tmp # ls -al total 706184 -rw-r----- 1 root system 34 Aug 27 16:10 hdisk3BB hdisk3 hdisk3BB.tmp drwxrwxrwt 51 bin bin ... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: Castelior
9 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Weird awk problem

Hi, I have a simple awk script: BEGIN{} { $a=$2-$1; print $a } END{if(NR==0){ print "0" } } to which I provide the following input 2.9 14 22.2 27 (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: jamie_123
4 Replies

LEARN ABOUT PLAN9

clri

clri(1M)						  System Administration Commands						  clri(1M)

NAME

       clri, dcopy - clear inode

SYNOPSIS

       clri [-F FSType] [-V] special i-number

       dcopy [-F FSType] [-V] special i-number

DESCRIPTION

       clri  writes  zeros  on the inodes with the decimal i-number on the file system stored on  special. After  clri, any blocks in the affected
       file show up as missing in an  fsck(1M) of special.

       Read and write permission is required on the specified file system device. The inode becomes allocatable.

       The primary purpose of this routine is to remove a file that for some reason appears in no directory. If it is used to zap  an  inode  that
       does  appear  in  a directory, care should be taken to track down the entry and remove it. Otherwise, when the inode is reallocated to some
       new file, the old entry will still point to that file. At that point, removing the old entry will destroy the new file. The new entry  will
       again point to an unallocated inode, so the whole cycle is likely to be repeated again and again.

       dcopy is a symbolic link to clri.

OPTIONS

       -F FSType       Specify the  FSType on which to operate.
			The  FSType should either be specified here or be determinable from  /etc/vfstab by matching  special with an entry in the
		       table, or by consulting /etc/default/fs.

       -V	       Echo the complete command line, but do not execute the command. The command line is generated  by  using  the  options  and
		       arguments  provided by the user and adding to them information derived from /etc/vfstab. This option should be used to ver-
		       ify and validate the command line.

USAGE

       See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of clri and dcopy when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte	(  2 **31
       bytes).

FILES

       /etc/default/fs	       Default local file system type

       /etc/vfstab	       List of default parameters for each file system

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       fsck(1M), vfstab(4), attributes(5), largefile(5)

NOTES

       This command might not be supported for all FSTypes.

SunOS 5.10							    16 Sep 1996 							  clri(1M)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:32 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy