removing odd named file containing non-printing characters

[Paolo_c]

Good morning ,

We have an odd named filename (q! ) below which was accidentally created through a VI editing session . and which we're now struggling to remove. if i list the 'filename' (inc nonprinting characters))  it displays the following 

'filename'.

#ll -lsqb

-rw-r--r--   1 root       sys            540 Sep 29 15:43  \177q! 

Could someone please suggest a  method I could employ to safely remove (or rename) this file ?  

thanks

Paul 

[Steven Schweda]

   If you can tolerate a little interactivity:

      rm -i *'q!'

   If:
      ls *'q!'
shows only one file, then the "-i" isn't really needed.

> [...] (or rename) [...]

   That may harder.  "mv" has a "-i" option, but (typical of UNIX) it
has different semantics.  If you can find a wildcard expression which
catches only the target file, then it's easy.

[RJHall]

Another approach is to delete by inode number:

ls -li *q!

4739 ...

then use find to locate the file by inode number and perform the rm:

find . -inum 4739 -exec rm -i {} \;

[Dennis Handly · Accepted solution]

>-rw-r--r--   1 root       sys            540 Sep 29 15:43  \177q! 

This is a Del char.  So you can simply type: rm -i ?q!

And hopefully there is only one.

Or you could use tr(1) to get that Del:

$ rm -i $(echo "Aq!" | tr "A" '\177')

Or

$ mv $(echo "Aq!" | tr "A" '\177') bad_file

Or look at the tag cloud:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/tag/unprintable%20chars/tg-p/category-id/operating_systems

[Paolo_c]

many thanks for the feedback provided.  I didn't realise that this was a DEL char but the workaround provided  worked fine. thanks also to everyone else that provided feedback.