Q: A better way to delete a file with name ~$detritus.docx ?
I was wondering if anyone knows how to conveniently delete the Office temp files that have names like ~$detritus.docx using the terminal. I know how to delete the file using the inode, but it would be nice to be able to do this with one quick command. The inode removal goes something like:
ls -il
find . -inum [inode-number] -exec rm -i {} \;
Is there another more convenient way?
Thanks
Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
Posted on Aug 21, 2015 9:22 AM
mac $ touch \~\$detritus.docx mac $ ls -l total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 mac staff 0B Aug 21 13:37 ~$detritus.docx mac $ rm \~\$detritus.docx remove ~$detritus.docx? y mac $ ls mac $ touch '~$detritus.docx' mac $ ls -l total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 mac staff 0B Aug 21 13:38 ~$detritus.docx mac $ rm '~$detritus.docx' remove ~$detritus.docx? y mac $ ls -l mac $
Would the backslash \ or the single quote ' be helpful?
$detritus is the form of a bash variable. You need to escape the $ to prevent bash from seeing the $ as the start of a variable.
I've escaped the ~ out of principle because of it's association with one's home directory.
R
PS. I have an alias for the rm command to add in the -i.
Posted on Aug 21, 2015 10:45 AM