Ghost file

[Michael H. Warfield Mike]

In article <17529 at adm.BRL.MIL> ZAT011%DJUKFA11.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu (Thomas Heil) writes:

>I got a little problem with  a "ghost file". It appears when I  list the
>contents of  a directory, but  it can't be accessed  in any way  - every
>program tells  me it doesn't  exist. It can't  even be removed.  But the
>directory (only containing that file) cannot be removed because it's not
>empty. And I can even create another  file with the same name which then
>appears  twice. Seems  to me  like  a file  system corruption  due to  a
>missing shutdown before the plug was pulled.

     Yeah.  It isn't a ghost file, it's a file with a non-printing character
in the name (like a space or a tab or a bell ....).  When you create a new file
of the "same" name, it doesn't have the embedded boggy so you really have
two files with two different names that simply appear alike.  If you have
everything out of the directory, the easiest thing to do is "rm -r <directory>"
from the parent directory.  Thougher, but doable, is to use some diagnostic
tools to do direct editing on the "directory" entry and change the name to
something real.  Tricks like that should only be attempted out of shear
despiration and only if you are willing to risk the potential catastrophic
damage any simple mistake can cause (doesn't sound like you're that far yet).

Michael H. Warfield  (The Mad Wizard)	| gatech.edu!galbp!wittsend!mhw
  (404)  270-2123 / 270-2098		| mhw at wittsend.LBP.HARRIS.COM
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