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Problem in reading a file

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# 1  
Old 02-09-2010
Problem in reading a file
Hi Guys,

I am having a file which does not have any name when i do a ls -l

Code:
-rw-r--r--   1 dctrdat1 dctrdata         35 Feb 09 08:04
-rw-r--r--   1 dctrdat1 dctrdata      11961 Feb 08 06:40 DAI_data.txt

Now i want to see what is inside that file. Can you please let me know how to read that file. I feel the file name should be some junk value.

Thanks for your help in advance,

Regards,
Magesh.
# 2  
Old 02-09-2010
The filename probably consists of non-printable characters. Try again using
Code:
ls -lb

which should show those as their octal codes preceded by '\'
# 3  
Old 02-09-2010
OR,
you can check the inode number with ls -i

you will get the o/p something like below

Code:
ls -i
16575 file1             16652 file2

take the inode number to find the file and open it.
Code:
find . -inum 16575 -exec cat {} \;

the above command will cat the file1
# 4  
Old 02-09-2010
1. Find the inode number of the file by:
Code:
ls -li

2. Display the file using the inode number:
Code:
find -inum 'NUMBER' -exec cat {} \;

example:

Code:
$ cat > ' '
testing data...
$ ls -li
total 4
1775447 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16 2010-02-09 18:44
$ find -inum '1775447' -exec cat {} \;
testing data...
$

# 5  
Old 02-09-2010
@pludi
i got the octal number but when i did a cat "ocatal number".. its not opening the file
Code:
tci001wasd02 $ cat '\006'
cat: 0652-050 Cannot open \006.
tci001wasd02 $ cat "\006"
cat: 0652-050 Cannot open \006.

As of the other method, i got the inum and ran the find command.
But it is giving an error as

Code:
tci001wasd02 $ ls -i
20519
tci001wasd02 $ find . -inum 20519 -exec cat{} \;
find: 0652-083 Cannot execute cat{}:: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

# 6  
Old 02-09-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by mac4rfree
@pludi
i got the octal number but when i did a cat "ocatal number".. its not opening the file
Code:
tci001wasd02 $ cat '\006'
cat: 0652-050 Cannot open \006.
tci001wasd02 $ cat "\006"
cat: 0652-050 Cannot open \006.

Never said you could open it by that name, but it helps to identify the issue
Quote:
Originally Posted by mac4rfree
As of the other method, i got the inum and ran the find command.
But it is giving an error as

Code:
tci001wasd02 $ ls -i
20519
tci001wasd02 $ find . -inum 20519 -exec cat{} \;
find: 0652-083 Cannot execute cat{}:: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

You're missing a space between the cat and the opening curly bracket.
# 7  
Old 02-09-2010
Please post the output from the following unix commands. They are designed to show the exact name of a file.

Code:
ls -la | sed -n l

ls -lab

If this is the only single-character filename in the directory, you could rename it without needing to know the name.

Code:
mv ? file_with_unknown_name

Last edited by methyl; 02-09-2010 at 11:20 AM.. Reason: Afterthought
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