Unable to move or delete file with \r in the name

Question

Somehow i have tar file called 'secret\r-.tar.gz'.
Note that it has \r in the name.

I tried following SSH command for moving but none of them are working:

mv secret\r-.tar.gz ../ mv secret\\r-.tar.gz ../ mv secret\\r-.tar.gz ../ mv "secret\r-.tar.gz" ../

All resulted with error:

mv: cannot stat `secret\r-.tar.gz': No such file or directory

Can you guys point me to the right direction.

Try to use the bash completion by pressing TAB to complete the file name with correct escaping. — Marco
– Marco, Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 10:22

Chris Down · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-17 10:21:31Z

6

If the file is literally called secret\r-.tar.gz, mv "secret\r-.tar.gz" ../ should have worked.

If the \r is really a carriage return, you need to have a literal carriage return (and not an escape):

mv $'secret\r-.tar.gz' ..

answered Jul 17, 2013 at 10:21

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Jander · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 00:07:26Z

You can generally use globbing (* or ?) to deal with hard-to-type characters in file names. For example:

mv secret?-.tar.gz something-more-appropriate.tar.gz

You might want to use echo or ls first to be sure of what you're getting.

2 Answers 2