file w/ umlaut = no such file or directory
i downloaded a file which included an umlaut in it's filename, and now, not only does that file not show up in the folder, no files show up in the folder.
i checked the "ls" listing in terminal, and it showed all the files were still there. the new file was listed as well with four question marks where the character with the umlaut was. (strangely, when i tried "ls -alF" all the other files still showed up, but this new troublesome file did not.)
i've tried renaming, deleting, and moving the file, all come up with "No such file or directory."
i tried moving all the other files to another directory, and then trashing the entire folder, which gives me Error code -35: "The operation cannot be completed because one or more required items cannot be found."
anyone know a way i can rename or, at the very least, delete this file?
thanks
i checked the "ls" listing in terminal, and it showed all the files were still there. the new file was listed as well with four question marks where the character with the umlaut was. (strangely, when i tried "ls -alF" all the other files still showed up, but this new troublesome file did not.)
i've tried renaming, deleting, and moving the file, all come up with "No such file or directory."
i tried moving all the other files to another directory, and then trashing the entire folder, which gives me Error code -35: "The operation cannot be completed because one or more required items cannot be found."
anyone know a way i can rename or, at the very least, delete this file?
thanks
Comments
I suggest trying to change the filename, by dropping into terminal, cd'ing to the folder holding the crazynamed files. Then, type "mv ", followed by a few letters of one of the crazy-named files. Then, instead of completing the name yourself, hit tab. If you typed enough of the name to distinquish it from all others in that folder, then your shell-line should read "mv [full name of your file]". The full name of the file may have seemingly unnecessary slashes and weirdness to it. Type in a short, simple word after hitting space. Ex: "mv [long crazy name] file.txt". Assuming the "mv.." line went successfully, you now have a file which should be viewable in the finder (and thenceforth usable). You can repeat this for the other oddly named files. Also, if a file has a period as the first letter of its name, then it won't be visible in the Finder (and is only visible with "ls -a"), so if 1 of the files has one, and u need to see it, chg the name to 1 w/o the leading period (.).
hope this helped.
is there any way to delete a directory in terminal, ignoring the fact that there are files in the directory? (since rmdir gives me a "Directory not empty." error.) i've also tried rm -R on the directory, but it, again, gives me the "No such file or directory" error on that file.
if not, any special utilities i can use to get rid of this. i normally wouldn't worry about it, but it's a pretty large file.
btw, Freak.. i never knew about that, type a few letters then press Tab thing.. it's quite handy!.. thanks!
i forgot that you said they weren't visible in the finder. well, if ur really bent on destroying them, try this. First, "cd" to inside the folder. Then "rm -rf *". the 'r' means recursive (so it'll get any subfolders), and the 'f' means force-it. If the files have different owners or permissions that don't allow you to delete them, you may have to "su" (or "sudo -s") first (or do "sudo rm -rf *"). If it gives you shyt, do "sudo rm -rf */*". if it gives you shyt still, add "/*" again. then go back to "sudo rm -rf *".
also, to learn more about "rm" you can do "man rm". You can actually do that for almost every cli prog you have too (ex: "man ls", "man whois").
[ 07-01-2002: Message edited by: thuh Freak ]</p>
i'm beginning to think this 700MB file will be sitting there until i format..
anyone got any other ideas?
thanks again, Freak.. with your help, i'm at least learning through this annoying experience.
<strong>you may not believe this, but.. none of that worked!.. no matter what i do, it still gives me the Directory not empty error.
i'm beginning to think this 700MB file will be sitting there until i format..
anyone got any other ideas?
thanks again, Freak.. with your help, i'm at least learning through this annoying experience.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Lemme take a crack at it...even though I'll only be expanding on Freak.
So if I'm understanding you correctly, you have a file perhaps called "thefilefüt.txt" and it will not show up in the finder, and shows up as say "thefilef????t.txt" in Terminal.
I'll further assume that it is in a directory called "direct" which is on your Desktop (though you can change any of this to your situation).
Here's what I'd do in Terminal:
cd ~/Desktop
This puts me in the Desktop Directory.
l direct
This will list out the contents of "direct" equivalent to "ls -l"
If I see the file there (assumption here) it's time to remove it (If you don't see the file here, and it doesn't appear in the Finder, it probably doesn't exist anymore):
sudo rm -rf direct/*
Here it should prompt you for your admin password. Type it in, and it should recursively remove everything inside direct (remove anything you need from direct before doing this)
If somehow this doesn't work, try:
sudo rm -rf direct/*.txt
Changing ".txt" to whatever the ending of your wacky file is. This will delete all files in the directory that end in .txt
then if you want to delete the directory:
sudo rmdir direct
sudo not strictly needed, but it can't hurt
If this doesn't work, it's weird. I'm too tired to think of other conclusions, but try all those things again (even if you thought you tried them with Freak) and see what happens.
--TAK1
[ 07-02-2002: Message edited by: The All Knowing 1 ]</p>
dont format. i'm reluctant to recommend this because it should b possible in osx, but you may be able to get rid of the file using vanilla os9. if you goto the Sys Prefs, and chg the startup disk/c to something with OS9 (or less) on it (if you dont have 9 installed anywhere, than pop in a 9 or less cd). Restart, navigate to the file, and get rid of it. Then, System Folder>Control Panels>Startup Disk and chg back to ur osx disk and restart again. os9 doesn't have the same finder, and i dont think it hides files in the same way.
But, if you can't see it in 9, then hop on the inet and get ResEdit (from asu.info.apple.com, i think). With resedit, do file>open and navigate to where the file should be, open it, and then Get Info (w/i resedit, not finder) on it. There should be an opt to make it invisible (make sure that is deactivated). Save+close. Now delete the file in finder (remember to empty the trash).
If these opts dont work, you could try (back in osx) emptying the file with a cmd like this:
`echo "blah" > [filename, tabbed out]`
it'll probably give u the same kind of file not found shyt tho. but if it dont, then ur 700meg file is reduced to 4 bytes (plus file system stuff).
i know there is someway of getting rid of files with messed up names. i had a bunch of mp3s a while back, with weird names, and i managed to get thru it. dont remember exactly which step worked tho.
the file was viewable in os9 and delete-able as well!.. unfortunately, in my haste, i forgot i probably could've just renamed the file and kept it.. but i'm just happy it's gone.
well.. now we OS X users have word, photoshop, and most of the big apps we've needed before switching to OS X.. but until bugs like these are fixed, i really hope they keep selling their computers with OS 9!
<strong>well.. now we OS X users have word, photoshop, and most of the big apps we've needed before switching to OS X.. but until bugs like these are fixed, i really hope they keep selling their computers with OS 9!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Funny you should say that...they may not. The Xserve will not boot into OS 9, and I imagine the new Powermac G4 could conceivably be the same way...(but thats discussion for another forum)