How can I delete a file with spaces and quotes in the name?

Question

How do I delete a file named 1 '2 3' 4 5 in Linux? None of the methods I've used have worked.

Have you tried writing rm 1 and pressing TAB? The tab completion is supposed to do all quoting for you, if the beginning of the file is unique. Using zsh, you can even tab-sycle through all possibilities. — Philippos, Mar 08 '22 at 12:14
If you could demonstrate some of those methods that didn't work, perhaps the answers here could teach you more about the why, and prevent future problems! — Jeff Schaller, Mar 08 '22 at 14:01
See https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/208140/deleting-files-with-spaces-in-their-names — Andy Lester, Mar 08 '22 at 15:04
"None of the methods I've used have worked." Show us what those methods were, and we can help solve the problem. — Andy Lester, Mar 08 '22 at 15:05
How to echo single quote when using single quote to wrap special characters in shell?, What is the difference between the "...", '...', $'...', and $"..." quotes in the shell?, How to escape quotes in shell? — ilkkachu, Mar 08 '22 at 15:47

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 08 '22 at 06:11

9

You should "escape" both the spaces and the single quotes using \, so the command should be:

rm 1\ \'2\ 3\'\ 4\ 5

Or use double quotes:

rm "1 '2 3' 4 5"

In several shells, you can also use TAB completion (type 1 and then TAB to let the shell complete the rest of the file), and the shell will take care of using appropriate quoting / escaping.

edited Mar 08 '22 at 06:11

Stéphane Chazelas

544,893

answered Mar 08 '22 at 05:59

Gabriel Núñez Yuvé

402

Or just single quotes: '1 '\''2 3'\'' 4 5' – ceving Mar 08 '22 at 07:49
You can also try to use globbing patterns for problematic characters, if the result is still unique: '1 '?'2 3'?' 4 5' – ceving Mar 08 '22 at 07:54
3

If it is hard to predict uniqueness, a safe method is interactive mode: rm -i *1*2*3*4*5* should not produce too many matches. – Paul_Pedant Mar 08 '22 at 09:47
1

We don't need an exhaustive list of every conceivable way to generate the file name. The double quoted string is perfectly readable. – chepner Mar 08 '22 at 14:54

How can I delete a file with spaces and quotes in the name?

1 Answers1