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I have no idea what created this file - I guess a terrible shell script.
It is called '.env'$'\r'
I have tried various versions of rm, and the technique of opening the direcory with vim ./, selecting the file, and Shift-D to delete.
This didn't work, failing with a
**warning** (netrw) delete(/root/squawker/.env) failed!
NetrwMessage [RO]
"NetrwMessage" --No lines in buffer--
How can I delete this pesky file?
This is on Ubuntu 20.04
On recent-ish Linux systems (with GNU tools as in most desktop distributions), ls prints names with weird characters using the shell's quoting syntax. If that '.env'$'\r' is what ls gives, the name of the file is .env<CR>, where <CR> is the carriage-return character. You could get that if you had a shell script with Windows line-endings that ran e.g. whatever > .env.
The good thing here is that the output of ls there is directly usable as input to the shell. Well, to Bash, ksh, and zsh at least, not a standard POSIX sh, like Debian/Ubuntu's /bin/sh, Dash.
So try with just
rm -f '.env'$'\r'
Of course rm -f .env? should also work to remove anything named .env plus any one character.
Now, of course it's also possible that the filename is literally that, what with the single quotes and backslashes. But that's more difficult to achieve by accident. Even so, rm -f *.env* should work to delete anything with .env in the name.
$'.env\r' would be a clearer / more readable way to write it, with the whole thing inside C-escape-expanding quotes. Oh, but that is how ls --quoting-style=shell-escape .env* prints it, unfortunately, if I touch that filename first. This looks like a good use-case for rm -i .env? or .env* as another answer points out.
May 21, 2022 at 3:46
ls, it has nothing to do with Linux.
May 21, 2022 at 13:56
If using GNU find, then you can delete it by the inode.
ls -lid -- .env*
The number in the first column is the inode. Note what it is for the file that you actually want should others with the string env in the filename exist.
find . -inum <inode> -exec rm -f {} \;
Replace <inode> with the actual inode number. You can remove the -exec part so that you know that it is returning the file that you want before deleting it.
You can also use:
find . -inum <inode> -delete
I sometimes use the -exec bit out of habit but either one works.
*env* expansion would not include the OP's .env<CR> file which is a hiddent file though.
May 21, 2022 at 6:11
Ask the shell to wildcard the tricky part of the name, and ask rm to remember it for you so you don't need to type it.
$ touch '.env'$'\r'
$ ls -l .env*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 May 20 16:51 '.env'$'\r'
$ rm -i .env*
rm: remove regular empty file '.env'$'\r'? y
A quick-and-dirty way to select pesky filenames is to use the autocompletion feature of the shell.
Type rm , then hit the TAB key until the file to remove is printed on screen.
.env<tab> would work in Bash if there's only that one filename starting like that. But if e.g. .env also exists, then the completion doesn't really help.
"'.en and then TAB. The file name should be completed correctly.
May 21, 2022 at 17:51