Rename Files That Start With a Special Character

Gregg

Suppose you find that you have a file with a special character and you want to delete it:

$ ls -badfile.txt PrintHood reg57.txt Favorites Recent scripts $ rm -badfile.txt rm: invalid option -- 'b' Try 'rm ./-badfile.txt' to remove the file '-badfile.txt'. Try 'rm --help' for more information. $ ls *.txt ls: invalid option -- 'e' Try 'ls --help' for more information.

First, find the inode of the file by using ls -i on the command line:

$ ls -i 54804119 -badfile.txt 56634824 PrintHood 56634825 Recent 56634807 Favorites 54804251 reg57.txt 56634833 scripts

The “-i” flag will display the file’s inode: 54804119 -badfile.txt

The inode for the “bad” file is 54804119. Once the inode is identified, use the find command to rename the file:

$ find . -inum 54804119 -exec mv {} NewName \; $ ls NewName NewName

Now you can delete it.

$ rm NewName