log file listed 3 times

[Jerry Sommerville_2]

I have a strange one. I am running HP-UX 11.00 and when I do a "ls -l /var/opt/resmon/log/event.log" I get the following output:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 98904 May 13 07:39 /var/opt/resmon/log/event.log

However, when I do a simple "ls -l" from that directory, this is what I see:

jsommerv@corp64 /var/opt/resmon/log >ls -l
total 1456
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 27 Jan 24 2001 api.log -> /etc/opt/rg
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 30 Jan 24 2001 client.log -> /etc/opg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 98904 May 13 07:39 event.log
-r--r----- 1 root root 500309 May 2 14:33 event.log1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 68212 May 13 07:39 event.log
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 33 Jan 24 2001 registrar.log -> /etcg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 68212 May 13 07:39 event.log
jsommerv@corp64 /var/opt/resmon/log >


Event.log is listed 3 times! What gives?

[Stephen Keane · Accepted solution]

Probably hidden characters (unprintable) try

# ls -l | cat -v

[Steven E. Protter]

Two of the listings are the same file.

The top or third listing is a little mysterious.

What I suspect is a circular soft link created by the ln -s command.

I can't tell from what I see where that is.

If the system can be booted, I'd like to see this output after a boot.

SEP

[john korterman]

Hi,
as Stephen pointed out it is probably a case of unprintable chars. They can also be listed by:
# ls -lb
where the unprintable appears in octal notation. It is probably more difficult to figure out how the files got there.

regards,
John K.

[Jerry Sommerville_2]

Thanks Stephan and John - you guys hit the nail on the head. Points assigned.

:-)