UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello UNIX gurus,

I noticed this file or whatever in one of our directories, and somehow I am not able to proceed with my work, without deleting this one.

.insert--- 1 siebload intrface 0 Feb 22 01:25 Testfile

I am confused, as it doesnt appear to be a file, and on doing any file operations, "rm, mv, cat" doesnt help. It just gives errors:

cat-:
"cat: cannot open Testfile"

rm-:
"Testfile: No such file or directory"

mv-:
mv: cannot access Testfile


help me guys, how do i remove this entry?

---------- Post updated at 04:39 AM ---------- Previous update was at 04:36 AM ----------

One more thing... when I did a listing like this...check the result.

$ ls | grep insert
.insertTestfile

I even tried deleting, moving the file ".insertTestfile", but in vain

Check that your file is not currently in use ( man fuser )
If not in use

Check it has a standard type and that your have the required authorizations/ access rights to remove it.

Code:

id
ls -ld Testfil*

Make sure the Testfil* match only the file you want to remove

Then remove it (it should handle invisible character if some)

Code:

rm "Testfil*"

thanks so much ctsgnb... there probably were some extra characters attached to it, but pre-fixed to it.

rm -f Testfil* didnt work for me.

but, rm -f *estfil* did the trick.

thanks....