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I accidently created a file named ??q:q and i can't remove it.

rm '??q:q' or rm '\?\?q\:q' (To escape the ?) says No such file or directory

Another interesting thing: in ls it shows the name as ??q:q. But when I type rm <tab><tab> is says ^?^?q:q (I tried to remove it with this name, too)

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  • Just tested this - but rm \?\?q\:q works... (without the quotes)
    – Wilf
    Dec 11, 2013 at 10:41
  • I think the problem is the way I created the file, which I sadly can't remember. When I type rm <tab><tab> the filename is different. If i just create a File with ne name ??q:q, a simple rm` will work
    – 0xAffe
    Dec 11, 2013 at 10:46
  • what does ls -l show for the file?
    – Wilf
    Dec 11, 2013 at 10:50
  • it shows ??q:q
    – 0xAffe
    Dec 11, 2013 at 10:51
  • For the permissions - like -rw-rw-r--. 1 wilf wilf 0 Dec 11 10:54 ??q:q
    – Wilf
    Dec 11, 2013 at 10:54

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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rm has the -- option, which makes rm treat everything behind those two dashes as the filename.

Thus, using

rm -- ??q:q

should remove the file.

Tested using bash 4.2.45 on Ubuntu 13.10.

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  • Note: this command will also remove a file named XXq:q. To prevent that, quote it. I guess that the file is not really named (question mark)(question mark)q:q, but that that the filename is invalid for the configured character set. In that case, wildcards may work (try it first with ls -ld *q:q!), and otherwise use the find inode trick from falconer.
    – Lekensteyn
    Dec 11, 2013 at 11:17
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If drc's answer didn't work then try deleting it by the inode number:

  1. Find out the inode number of the file with ls -i, eg. 123456

  2. Remove: 

    find . -inum 123456 -exec rm -i {} \;
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  • It is safer if it prints back the filename what we want to delete.
    – falconer
    Dec 11, 2013 at 11:02
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    @AvinashRaj The filename that appears visually does not have to be the real filename. For fun, create a file consisting of all bytes 1 to 256 (excluding the / because it is a directory separator): touch "$(python2 -c 'print("".join(chr(i) if i!=ord("/") else "" for i in range(1,256)))')"
    – Lekensteyn
    Dec 11, 2013 at 11:22
  • @Lekensteyn that's my guess too that these aren't real question marks.
    – falconer
    Dec 11, 2013 at 11:26

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