Re: filenames starting with tilde character
John Eldredge wrote:
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> How does Debian LINUX react if it encounters a filename starting
> with a tilde character '~'? On the SCO UNIX system at work, a
> MS-DOS program accessing the UNIX filesystem via NFS created
> several temporary files which started with the tilde character
> (which seems to be a standard practice under MS-DOS). UNIX
> programs trying to read the directory containing these files
> would freeze up so thoroughly that even 'kill -9' wouldn't kill
> the processes; they only went away once the system was rebooted.
> I was told by someone that this is a known bug in UNIX. I
You should think twice about this "someone"'s credibility!
I've never encountered untoward problems with ~'s, and have used unix...
enough that I would have encountered such trouble, were it common.
Note that you may need to _escape_ the ~ in _some_contexts_, tho -
because it has a special meaning. Sometimes "\~" will work better than
"~" alone.
> haven't had the nerve to test this under LINUX, since I finally
> had to use the 'clri' command to clear out the inodes associated
> with the files, then use 'fsck' to recover the disk space. If
> LINUX allows a non-LINUX computer to create such files via NFS,
> it could have the same vunerability as SCO UNIX.
I don't know how to say this gently, while still getting the point
across.
Using clri to fix this problem, is quite literally like using a pile
driver to drive a nail.
If you simply want to remove such a file, try "rm ./~foo" or "rm \~foo".
All indications are that this is not a problem in Linux =or= SCO, but
that there's a problem with the source of your information.
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