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This is probably trivial, but I'm quite new to Linux and I was unable to find any info online.

In a folder, I can execute the command find . -regex '.*py' and get the following result:

./.#netMHC3.2.py

Is this a file in the current directory? What can I do to display its contents?

Thank you

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jun 9 '10 at 16:24

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3 Answers

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Files which start with a '.' are hidden files. I don't know of a standard to use the '#' on certain kind of files. I've seen it on "backup" files generated by text editors.

To display the contents of a file use the "cat" command:

cat .#netMHC3.2.py

'.' and './' are the current directory in which you are working (use pwd to know where you are).

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You might be better off using less, or piping it to less if you absolutely need to use cat. That way it's readable id it's more than a page. – MDMarra Jun 9 '10 at 16:32
Thanks - that makes sense. When I am in the same directory and use the cat command or try to download over SFTP, I get "no such file or directory". Could this be a permissions issue? – Martin Wiboe Jun 9 '10 at 16:34
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As Fernando said, the '.' before the file name means it's hidden. Hidden means that by using the ls command, the hidden file won't be part of the output. You can see them by using ls -a however.

This also applies to file managers. By default most graphical file managers won't display hidden files unless you tell them to.

Hidden files in your home directory are typically used to store configuration data for your applications. ~/.bashrc would contain any configuration data for your Bash shell, and it would only apply to your account.

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This file is created by cvs

I think this is created when a cvs update fails and cvs backs up original file.

./.#netMHC3.2.py means that there is a hidden file ".#netMHC3.2.py" under current directory(./)

you can view this file from command line (while with in the same directory as the file) cat ".#netMHC3.2.py"

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