Linux Bash Scripting: how to rename or delete a file which has special characters in its filename

Suppose if you have created a file with a special character in its name because of a typo, you may not be able to access it. You may not even be able to delete the file. For example, see the below files.

$ touch "test-file1 " [Note: There is a space at the end] $ touch "test'file2" [Note: There is a single quote in the middle] $ touch "test?file3" [Note: There is a question mark in the middle] $ ls -1 test* test-file1 test'file2 test?file3

If you see the output of ls command, you will not be able to identify the space at the end of the file. Hence you may not be able to access the file unless you specify a space at the end of the file using quotes.

The ? is a wild character for which any character can be substituted. Hence you may end up deleting or reading some other file.

To handle this situation, we can make use the inode of the file. Every file has a unique inode number with which we can identify the file. 

$ ls -i1 test* 13287439 test-file1 13287623 test'file2 13287981 test?file3

To rename the file:

You can specify the inode number in the find command as below to rename the files. The below command renames the file using  the inode number.

$ find -inum 13287623 -exec mv {} testfile3new \; $ ls -i1 test* 13287439 test-file1 13287623 test'file2 13287981 testfile3new

To delete the file:

You can delete the file using the inode number of the file with the help of "find" command as below.

$ find -inum 13287623 -exec rm {} \; $ ls -i1 test* 13287439 test-file1 13287981 testfile3new [Note: The file with name "test'file" is now removed]