Re: Need to remove a ghost file, but can't because it doesn't exist

[Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu>]

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 08:54:15PM +0000, J.A. de Vries wrote:
> On 2006-11-15 @ 11:20:46 (week 46) Ralph Katz wrote:
> 
> > How about:
> > 
> > # rm -f 1141914051.*
> > 
> > No promises...  but something like that worked once for me in a similar
> > mysterious situation.
> 
> Ah, hadn't tried that yet. Too bad it didn't work.
> 
> $ rm -i 1141914051.*
> rm: cannot lstat
> `1141914051.M484859P8695V0000000000000309Ip0007553_0.draupnir,S=3707:2,S':
> No such file or directory

See if find sees the file, e.g.,

    find -name 11419\*

and if it does, then something like

    find -name 11419\* -exec rm {} \;

or
    find -name 11419\* -exec mv {} somename \;

if you'd like to have a look at it.
 
There might be a problem with special characters in the name getting
fouled up when the shell interprets it.  If so, it might be possible to
use rm if you escape those characters.

Ken

-- 
Ken Irving, fnkci@uaf.edu