CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashterminalrmdir
Kiran Mohandas
Kiran Mohandas

Reputation: 11

How to delete a folder which named as \ using terminal

I Created a folder in desktop using GUI named ' \ ' after when i tried to delete that folder using terminal by rmdir . then i cant able to delete it . what is the reason for that ???

Upvotes: 0

Views: 793

Answers (4)

user2350426
user2350426

Reputation:

You just need to give bash a command line that has an argument of a single \ (after bash expansion).

The easiest one is: rmdir '\'

The most basic is to escape the \: rmdir \\

Or even inside double quotes: rmdir "\\"

Using an octal escape number: rmdir $'\134'
or rmdir "$(echo -e '\0134')"
or rmdir "$(printf '%b\n' '\134')"

Using an hexadecimal value: rmdir $'\x5c'
or rmdir "$(echo -e '\x5c')"
or rmdir "$(printf '%b\n' '\x5c')"

Upvotes: 1

cdarke
cdarke

Reputation: 44364

The problem is that \ is a special character that is intercepted and used by the shell ("expanded") before the rmdir program gets it. So you need to quote the character to indicate that the shell should not mess with it. There are (at least) two ways:

rmdir \\
rmdir '\'

Note on the second one: single quotes, not double (\ is expanded inside double quotes).

Give that, as an exercise, how would you delete a directory called -\?

Upvotes: 4

MikhilMC
MikhilMC

Reputation: 1019

Type rmdir '\' to delete that folder

Upvotes: 0

Inian
Inian

Reputation: 85683

You need to escape the character for deletion, rmdir \\ , add a -v flag for verbose i.e. rmdir -v \\

$ mkdir \\
$ ls -lrt \\
total 0
$ rmdir -v \\
rmdir: removing directory, `\\'

Upvotes: 2

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