remove a file with corrupted name

Question

So this happened:

$ ls
''$'\342\200''abc2.16.5'
$ ls | od -c
0000000 342 200   a   b   c   2   .   1   6   .   5  \n
$ ls -il
76236897 -rw-rw-r-- 1 mob users 0 Aug 16 17:52 ''$'\342\200''abc2.16.5'

How do I delete this file? Here are some things that didn't work:

$ rm -i -- *
rm: remove regular file ''$'\342\200''abc2.16.5'? y
rm: cannot remove ''$'\342\200''abc2.16.5': No such file or directory

$ rm ./*
rm: cannot remove './'$'\342\200''abc2.16.5': No such file or directory

$ rm ./<TAB>        # for file name completion
rm: cannot remove './'$'\342\200''abc2.16.5': No such file or directory

$ find . -delete
find: cannot delete './\342\200abc2.16.5': No such file or directory

$ perl -e 'unlink(glob("*")) or die $!'
$ perl -e 'unlink(glob("*2.16.5")) or die $!'
No such file or directory at -e line 1.

$ find . -inum 76236897 -delete
find: cannot delete './\342\200abc2.16.5': No such file or directory

$ rename * xxx ; rm -v xxx
rm: cannot remove 'xxx': No such file or directory

Curiously, truncate * --size 0 works, cat * works, shred * works

What should I try next? System is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.8

Answer 1

Since you say shred works, I'd like to suggest adding the -u argument to shred.

From the man page (man shred):

-u deallocate and remove file after overwriting

So I would try shred -n 0 -u * in the directory containing the file.

Answer 2

This has happened to me quite often over the years. For me, it has typically occurred on a Windows NTFS partition; you are using RHEL, but maybe the same process will help you.

I have never been able to successfully delete the corrupted file, or the parent directory.

I have always had to:

• Backup all files (minus the directory with the corrupted file)
• Format the partition
• Restore all files

In the event that formatting the partition is not feasible, and the corrupted file isn't causing any real problem, you can also try the following:

• Put the corrupted file in its own directory
  • copy the corrupted file to a new directory
  • copy all the other good files to a new directory
• Move the directory with the corrupted file to $TEMP or someplace where it can be safely ignored
• Put all the other good files back where they were