Four things:
Try the complement of the solution - move everything else, then remove everything.
mkdir ../everything_else
mv problematic/folder/path/* everything_else
sudo rm -rf problematic/folder/path
Make sure there is no ACL on the file, and remove any that may be causing problems:
$ /bin/ls -le problematic/folder/path
total 16
-rw-r--r--+ 1 whmcclos staff 1918 Dec 18 09:00 README
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow read,execute,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
$ chmod -a "..."
Try a Perl script to smooth out OS/FS naming dependencies?
For instance, something along the lines of this code fragment - keep the filename in anonymous $_:
$ mkdir fred; cd fred; touch a b c d e f
$ cat > try.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
opendir(D,".") or die "cannot open .\n";
@files=readdir(D);
closedir(D);
foreach (@files) {
next if /\.{1,2}/; # Skip directory entries
print; print "? "; $r = <>; chop($r); # Provide some level of control
if($r eq "y" or $r eq "Y") {unlink;} # Should report if cannot unlink unnamed file - tbd.
}
^D
$ /usr/bin/perl try.pl
a?
b?
c? y
d?
e?
f?
$ ls
a b d e f try.pl
[Updated to reflect authors original intent - copy the beast to a well behaved file(name):]
To see if Perl can copy the misbehaved file to a well behaved file, I'd use the below Perl script - still along the lines of the above - let Perl "anonymously" access the filename.
(Also, the ACL should really be checked; the ACL can even prevent root from normally accessing the file as root, from what I recall dealing with.]
Here's the Perl script:
$ cat try3.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
# A code fragment to ask to copy a displayed file to $TO; chg $TO on next line:
$TO="my_new_behaved_filename"; # This is the name that will be copied to
opendir(D,".") or die "cannot open .\n";
@files=readdir(D);
closedir(D);
foreach $f (@files) {
next if $f =~ /\.{1,2}/; # Skip directory entries, "." & ".."
print "$f? "; $r = <>; chop($r); # Provide some level of control; "y" or "Y"
if($r eq "y" or $r eq "Y") { # to copy the displayed filename to $TO
print "copying it to $TO...\n";
# Now, see if we can copy the darn thing to $TO:
open(FROM,$f) or die "sorry - couldn't open it...";
open(TO,">$TO");
while(read FROM, $buf, 16384) {
print TO $buf;
}
close(TO);
close(FROM);
}
}
Which you'd use as such, assuming try3.pl is the aforementioned Perl script:
$ ./try3.pl
a?
b?
d? y
copying it to my_new_behaved_filename...
e?
f?
Access the file through a symbolic or hard link and see what milage you get.
I'd use vi's filename [tab] expansion to try to "identify" to the shell what file you want to link to.
I moved my ~/{.vim,.viminfo,.vimrc} aside so as to restrict things, like wildmenu input. You may want to do the same.
Now, kick off the following command line sequence in the bogus file's containing folder:
$ vi
In vi, type precisely this sequence of characters
!!ln -s [tab]
So that key sequence was, in words: exclamation point, exclamation point, el, en, blank, dash, es, blank, tab. As soon as you hit the [tab] key, the first file of the current working directory should display after the blank character (following the "s") on vi's status line. Hit the [tab] key numerous times to cycle through to the bogus filename. When the bogus filename appears, press the space bar to add a space, and then type a new file/link-name.
The result on vi's status line should look something like this
!!ln -s bogus_filename new_sym_link_name
Hit the return key to see if the link command (spawned from vi to replace the current null line in vi's empty buffer, which we don't care about, here; we want the side effect of executing a shell command with tab expansion) will create the link, new_sym_link_name.
Exit vi with :q![return], and see if you can access your file through the symbolic link.
(You could also try a hard link by leaving off the -s in the above ln command.
Because I just noticed that you could change the filename through Windows, I'm thinking that somehow, a carriage-return linefeed sequence got into the filename, and that is confusing the various approaches.
Best Answer
Have you tried renaming with wildcard matching? For instance, if the file is bad:name.bin, try
ren bad*.bin ok.bin.