For questions concerning the generic use of computer files.
132
votes
5answers
79k views
Notepad++ is unable to load langs.xml, why?
Whenever I open NotePad++ the following error message appears:
---------------------------
Configurator
---------------------------
Load langs.xml failed!
---------------------------
...
92
votes
18answers
5k views
What's the quickest way to count the number of each character in a file?
I want to count the A's T's C's G's N's and "-" characters in a file, or every letter if needed, is there a quick Unix command to do this?
36
votes
9answers
52k views
Linux: How to move all files from current directory to upper directory?
I tried something like mv . .. but it doesn't work.
31
votes
5answers
1k views
Why is a 7zipped file larger than the raw file? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Why doesn't ZIP Compression compress anything?
I tried 7zipping an .exe file but it actually became larger.
Is this the expected result?
28
votes
6answers
8k views
How do I delete a 'locked' file?
On Windows XP, When I try and delete a specific file it says :
Cannot delete blah.blah: Make sure the
disk is not full or write-protected
and that the file is not currently in
use.
How can ...
26
votes
3answers
34k views
How to make new file permission inherit from the parent directory?
I have a directory called data. Then I am running a script under the user id 'robot'. robot writes to the data directory and update files inside. The idea is data is open for both me and robot to ...
24
votes
19answers
29k views
How can I mass rename files from the command line or using a 3rd party tool?
I've got a bunch of files named with a the pattern 99 - DescriptiveName.txt and I'd like to remove the number from the front so I just have DescriptiveName.txt.
How can I do this? Can I do it from ...
23
votes
4answers
3k views
How to lock a file against deletion but still make it writeable?
I want to make a file locked against deletion but still be writeable. How do I do this?
The file in question is a truecrypt volume as a file on a NAS SMB Network share, so I don't want to ...
23
votes
5answers
8k views
What does the ~ mean in a file path?
What does the ~ mean in an absolute file path?
I see this in the output of things like build scripts but the path does not exist.
23
votes
9answers
40k views
How to recover a removed file under linux
By accident, I used rm on a file I didn't want to delete. Is there any way that I can get it back under Linux?
23
votes
3answers
30k views
How can I determine what process has a file open in Linux?
I'd like to determine what process has ownership of a lock-file. The lock-files are simply a file with a specific name that has been created.
So, how can I determine what process has a particular ...
23
votes
10answers
9k views
How to Remove the Last 2 Lines of a Very Large File
I have a very large file ~400G, and I need to remove the last 2 lines from it. I tried to use sed, but it ran for hours before I gave up. Is there a quick way of doing this, or am I stuck with sed?
23
votes
4answers
5k views
How do I find out the file type without an extension?
After recovering my HDD, I ended up with a lot of files with no extension. Many of them are .bin files.
Is there any way to find out what file format they actually are?
Many of them have no ...
23
votes
2answers
33k views
Easy way to find out which process is locking a file or folder in Windows? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do I delete a ‘locked’ file?
How can I find out which process is locking a file or folder in Windows?
For instance if you are trying to delete a folder ...
22
votes
12answers
3k views
Best way to *confidently* search files and contents in Windows without using an indexing service?
Back in Windows XP I knew that doing a file search and checking "Search file contents" (or whatever it was) I would get my results if I waited patiently.
In Vista, I felt I had absolutely no ...
22
votes
6answers
17k views
How can I identify what application is using a given file?
I'm trying to delete some folder but this error is preventing from doing it:
Cannot delete [FileName]: It is being used by another person or program.
Close any programs that might be using ...
21
votes
5answers
16k views
Recursively count all the files in a directory [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I count the number of folders in a drive using Linux?
I have a really deep directory tree on my Linux box. I would like to count all of the files in that path, ...
21
votes
4answers
22k views
Bash script to delete files older than x days with subdirectories
I'm trying to delete a ton of files older than x days.
Now I have a script to do that
find /path/to/files* -mtime +10 -exec rm {} \;
But this will also delete the subdirectories. There are a ton ...
20
votes
20answers
10k views
What's a good alternative to Windows' “Search for Files and Folders”?
The built-in Windows Search tool will apparently not search within PHP files. I cannot find the files named *.php containing text "some_function_name" that I know are there.
Search is complete. ...
20
votes
2answers
5k views
How to append to a file as sudo? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
sudo unable to write to /etc/profile
I want to do:
echo "something" >> /etc/config_file
But, since only the root user has write permission to this file, I can't ...
20
votes
5answers
17k views
Batch-convert files for encoding
How can I batch-convert files in a directory for their encoding (e.g. ANSI->UTF-8) with a command or tool?
For single files an editor helps, but how to do the mass files job?
18
votes
3answers
1k views
Can Double Zipping Cause Problems?
I have a directory that I have been storing a ton of files in. Among the 10ish types of files there are also .ZIPs of other directories.
In my personal experience I vaguely remember issues when ...
18
votes
4answers
13k views
How to copy with cp to include hidden files and hidden directories and their contents?
How can I make cp -r copy absolutely all of the files and directories in a directory
Requirements:
Include hidden files and hidden directories.
Be one single command with an flag to include the ...
17
votes
4answers
3k views
Tool to determine what has locked a file
Every once in a while when I try to remove a file I have been working with, Windows tells me I cannot remove it, because some application is still using it.
Sometimes it's just my own stupidity, and ...
16
votes
2answers
338 views
What does the trailing “+” mean in file permission bits in Linux?
I used ls -a to list a file and got the following information:
sqyang@intel4-88: ls -a 123
-rwxr-xr-x+ 1 root lsf 16845584 Nov 25 21:38 123*
The file permission part is -rwxr-xr-x+. What does the ...
15
votes
4answers
15k views
How can I find files that are bigger/smaller than x bytes?
In a terminal, how can I find files that are bigger or smaller than x bytes?
I suppose I can do something like
find . -exec ls -l {} \;
and then pipe the result to AWK to filter by file size. But ...
14
votes
5answers
3k views
How to keep only every nth line of a file
I've got a rather sizable CSV file (75MB). I'm just trying to produce a graph of it, so I really don't need all of the data.
Rewording: I'd like to delete n lines, then keep one line, then delete n ...
14
votes
9answers
13k views
How to delete a file in Windows with a too long filename? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Tool for deleting directories with path/names too long for normal delete
My wife has several files and folders that somehow ended up having filenames that have caused ...
14
votes
4answers
12k views
'No such file or directory' error in bash, but the file exists?
On Ubuntu, I get a 'No such file or directory' error when I try to execute a command.
I have checked with 'ls -la' , the file 'adb' is there and it has 'x' flag
So why I am getting a 'No such file ...
14
votes
14answers
79k views
How to download a URL as a file?
A website URL has "hidden" some MP3 files by embedding them as Shockwave files, as follows.
<span class="caption"><!-- Odeo player --><embed ...
13
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is it so hard to find a file in Ubuntu?
It's very hard to find files in Ubuntu. In Windows, you could just go to C:\Program Files and you would find what you need. In Ubuntu, you must use search to find something you need. Maybe I am ...
13
votes
1answer
340 views
How to recover a deleted file that is still open?
How can one restore a file that has been deleted but is still open by a process?
The blog post "Restoring files from /proc" explains how to do this on Linux:
Use lsof (e.g., lsof -c name) to find ...
12
votes
6answers
1k views
What is the most reliable way to send a big file between two Windows computers via network? [duplicate]
The file is around 170GB. I wouldn't upload it on the FTP, and download it. It is not reliable, sometime, connections drop, and it will have big trouble. So, is there any better way to do so? Anyone ...
12
votes
9answers
14k views
Windows equivalent of the Linux command 'touch'?
What do you use when you want to update the date-modified field of a file on Windows?
commands accessible via C++, .NET, C#, or something native to Windows (Vista preferably)
tools/applications ...
12
votes
2answers
12k views
How to get file/folder size with SSH on linux?
I am using SSH to connect to a CentOS server and I want to get the file in mb of some files and folders, how can I do it?
12
votes
1answer
168 views
Determining physical location of data on a disc
Does anybody know of a way to find out where, physically on a CD or DVD a given piece of data would be located?
I am trying to watch a DVD at the moment, and am about half-way through, but it keeps ...
11
votes
3answers
5k views
Why can't I edit a “Program Files” file on Windows 7?
I'm having trouble editing this file on Windows 7:
C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake 2.8.7\share\cmake-2.8\Modules\FindJNI.cmake
If I edit it in Cygwin (vi) or TextPad, those two programs see the ...
11
votes
20answers
5k views
What editor/viewer to use to inspect large text based files? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Text Editor for very big file - Windows
Are there any text editors/viewers (preferably on windows but other platforms are also ok) that can handle files of 500 MB or ...
11
votes
2answers
4k views
Is there a fix for the “Too many open files in system” error on OS X 10.7.1?
I need to get rid of the pesky "Too many open files in system" limit on OS X 10.7.1.
Is there a way?
11
votes
3answers
22k views
Set file permissions so that new files inherit same permissions
I have a folder in which new subfolders and files will be created automatically, by a script.
I want to maintain the user and group permissions recursively for all new folders and files placed in the ...
11
votes
1answer
12k views
How do I split a .zip file into multiple segments?
I have all the command line utils installed, and need to split an existing .zip (or) new file(s) into (50MB) .zip segments in Terminal.
i.e. Folder X = 900MB > Create self extracting .zip archive > ...
11
votes
1answer
6k views
How many files can a windows folder contain?
How many files can a windows folder contain?
This question is asked here but then the question text pollutes the question with issues of "rules of thumb"
So to be clear, this question is:
How many ...
11
votes
2answers
3k views
Can't delete an invincible 0 byte file
I have a file whose size is 0 bytes. When I try to remove it an error message appears, saying "Could not find file".
Here is the list of things I've tried to delete the file:
Rebooted
Reset folder ...
10
votes
2answers
3k views
How does file compression work?
So, I realised today I take file compression for granted. The ability to bundle a few files together into one, and have it come out smaller than any of them, is something I just accept as a fact, but ...
10
votes
2answers
2k views
Make a file non-deletable in USB
Somebody used my USB drive and upon returning it to me, I found a autorun.inf that is undeletable.
I tried changing it's file attribute which is only H (not even set as a system file) but it keeps on ...
10
votes
1answer
33k views
What are “reparse records”?
My computer just did a chkdisk, and when it finished processing file records, it said it had processed 44 reparse records. What exactly are they?
9
votes
6answers
594 views
Open file the next time the Windows computer boots
I'm going to be fixing a family friend's computer later and won't be interacting with the computer owner personally, so I would like to have a readme.txt to automatically open the first time (and only ...
9
votes
4answers
685 views
Can I create directories that don't exist while creating a new file in emacs?
In emacs, I create a file by visiting it with C-x C-f. Let's say I'd like to create /home/myself/new_directory/file.txt.
If new_directory does not exist yet, is there a way to have it get created ...
9
votes
7answers
430 views
How to avoid the danger of “File -> Save” when “Save As” is needed?
There are situations where I opened up a photo or graphics file, and made 81 modifications to it (crop, adjust color, brightness, contrast, etc, etc), and when I am ok with that file, I use
File ...
9
votes
3answers
680 views
How can I save the current contents of less to a file?
If I've piped the results of a command to less and then decided that I want to save the contents to a file, is this possible?
I've tried setting a mark a at the end of the buffer, and then returning ...
