Deleting Files with Odd Names (Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition)

14.11. Deleting Files with Odd Names

Summary Box

A perennial problem is deleting files that have strange characters (or other oddities) in their names. The next few articles contain some hints for the following:

Deleting files with random control characters in their names (Section 14.12).

Deleting files whose names start with a dash (Section 14.13).

Deleting files with "unprintable" filenames (Section 14.14).

Deleting files by using the inode number (Section 14.15).

Deleting directories and problems that can arise as a result (Section 14.16).

We'll also give hints for these:

Deleting unused (or rarely used) files (Section 14.17).

Deleting all the files in a directory, except for one or two (Section 14.18).

Most tips for deleting files also work for renaming the files (if you want to keep them): just replace the rm command with mv.

-- ML