I was running a Python script that malfunctioned and used sudo to create a file named >.
How can I get rid of this file?
Of course, when I try sudo rm >, I get the error bash: syntax error near unexpected token 'newline', because it thinks I’m trying to redirect the output of rm.
Its permissions are -rw-r--r--.
Answers:
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Method 1
Any of these should work:
sudo rm >
sudo rm '>'
sudo rm ">"
sudo find . -name '>' -delete
sudo find . -name '>' -exec rm {} +
Note that the last two commands, those using find, will find all files or directories named > in the current folder and all its subfolders. To avoid that, use GNU find:
sudo find . -maxdepth 1 -name '>' -delete
sudo find . -maxdepth 1 -name '>' -exec rm {} +
Method 2
You can also use Python to remove it:
python -c 'import os;os.remove(">")'
With POSIX find:
find . ! -name . -prune -type f -name '>' -exec rm -f {} +
Method 3
What I ended up doing initially also works:
sudo sh -c "rm >"
This is, of course, a variant on the simpler sudo rm >.
Method 4
I tried this as a comment but it came out all on one line
[<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="e2aa8390909ba28e8d81838e8a8d9196">[email protected]</a>]~% touch ">" [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c78fa6b5b5be87aba8a4a6abafa8b4b3">[email protected]</a>]~% cat > ">" line 1 line 2 [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c38ba2b1b1ba83afaca0a2afabacb0b7">[email protected]</a>]~% cat ">" line 1 line 2 [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="662e0714141f260a0905070a0e091512">[email protected]</a>]~% ls -l ">" -rw-r--r-- 1 Harry Harry 14 Jun 5 12:04 > [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fdb59c8f8f84bd91929e9c9195928e89">[email protected]</a>]~% rm ">" [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="450d2437373c05292a2624292d2a3631">[email protected]</a>]~% ls -l ">" ls: cannot access >: No such file or directory [<a href="https://getridbug.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="ade5ccdfdfd4edc1c2ceccc1c5c2ded9">[email protected]</a>]~%
Method 5
Quote the character so that it isn’t interpreted by the shell as a redirection:
sudo rm '>'
However, if you have other files with weird characters, the safest method is to open a GUI file explorer such as nautilus and delete it there.
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0