linux

If you want to delete a file that you can't type in the name of either because the name is long and complicated, or because it is difficult to type in without causing a syntax error then here is the solution.

You first need to find the inode reference of the file. This can be done by using the command ls -li. The start of each line has a number that is specific to that file. You could use the command ls -i , but the output is a little confusing.

To delete the file use the find command with the flag -inum, followed by a pipe into the rm (remove file) command like the following.

find . -inum 916618 | xargs rm

The xargs bit is used to pass a list of the files found from the find command to the rm command.

When navigating the file structure in Unix/Linux environments you will often find yourself typing cd to change the directory and then immediately typing ls to see the contents of the directory.

It is possible to run ls automatically every time you run cd by adding the following commands to your .bashrc file.

cd() {
 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
  builtin cd "$@" && ls
 else
  builtin cd ~ && ls
 fi
}}

You can often forget what you are not running as a super user, so if you type in a command that you can't run with your current set of privileges it will tell give you a permission denied response.

An alternative is to use the !! command to run the last command in the .bash_history. Use this with the sudo command to run the last command as a super user.

> command
Permission denied
 
> sudo !!