rm does not remove; ls tem* does not find temp; echo ~foo

rm does not remove; ls tem* does not find temp; echo ~foo

[Tolkin, Steve]

The following transcript shows a variety of odd behavior.
This is all cygwin 1.1.0 on NT 4.0

1. The rm command may fail withotu an error message
Some of the time this might be due to a leading ~ in a file name.
2. Echo ~foo produices no output at all -- is this correct?
3.  Why doesn't ls tem* find the directory named temp ?

Note that I have alias ls='ls -laF'

My commentary is preceded by --

579/temp> ls
total 394
drwxrwxrwt   3 administ SYSTEM      32768 Jun  2 13:39 ./
drwxrwxrwt  46 administ Administ    45056 Jun  2 13:39 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None            0 May 31 15:13 JET1B.tmp*
drwxrwxrwx   2 administ Administ     4096 Jun  2 13:39 dbi/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None         1536 Jun  1 13:53 ~DF7FE0.tmp*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None       721408 Jun  2 12:46 ~DF7FEA.tmp*
580/temp> rm *.tmp

-- No error message but the files are still there !

581/temp> ls
total 394
drwxrwxrwt   3 administ SYSTEM      32768 Jun  2 13:39 ./
drwxrwxrwt  46 administ Administ    45056 Jun  2 13:39 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None            0 May 31 15:13 JET1B.tmp*
drwxrwxrwx   2 administ Administ     4096 Jun  2 13:39 dbi/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None         1536 Jun  1 13:53 ~DF7FE0.tmp*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None       721408 Jun  2 12:46 ~DF7FEA.tmp*
582/temp> rm -f *.tmp

-- Adding -f made no difference

583/temp> ls
total 394
drwxrwxrwt   3 administ SYSTEM      32768 Jun  2 13:39 ./
drwxrwxrwt  46 administ Administ    45056 Jun  2 13:39 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None            0 May 31 15:13 JET1B.tmp*
drwxrwxrwx   2 administ Administ     4096 Jun  2 13:39 dbi/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None         1536 Jun  1 13:53 ~DF7FE0.tmp*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None       721408 Jun  2 12:46 ~DF7FEA.tmp*
584/temp> rm ~DF7FE0.tmp
rm: too few arguments
Try `rm --help' for more information.

-- I start to suspect the leading tilde

585/temp> echo ~DF7FE0.tmp


-- Well there is something funny here with the tilde!
-- But I get a similar failure on files without a tilde also!

586/temp> rm JET1B.tmp
587/temp> ls
total 394
drwxrwxrwt   3 administ SYSTEM      32768 Jun  2 13:39 ./
drwxrwxrwt  46 administ Administ    45056 Jun  2 13:39 ../
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None            0 May 31 15:13 JET1B.tmp*
drwxrwxrwx   2 administ Administ     4096 Jun  2 13:39 dbi/
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None         1536 Jun  1 13:53 ~DF7FE0.tmp*
-rwxrwxrwx   1 administ None       721408 Jun  2 12:46 ~DF7FEA.tmp*

-- no funny characters in that one explicitly named file 
-- rm failed to remove it and still no error message.

588/temp> echo ~
/usr/home
589/temp> echo ~a

-- A blank line is emitted.  Why?

Why can't ls tem* see temp ???!!!
602/temp> cd /
603/> ls -ld tem*
ls: tem*: No such file or directory
604/> ls -ld tem?
ls: tem?: No such file or directory
605/> ls -ld tem.*
ls: tem.*: No such file or directory
606/> ls -ld temp
drwxrwxrwt   2 administ SYSTEM      32768 Jun  2 13:46 temp/

 
Hopefully helpfully yours,
Steve
-- 
Steven Tolkin          steve.tolkin@fmr.com      617-563-0516 
Fidelity Investments   82 Devonshire St. R24D    Boston MA 02109
There is nothing so practical as a good theory.  Comments are by me, 
not Fidelity Investments, its subsidiaries or affiliates.


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Re: rm does not remove; ls tem* does not find temp; echo ~foo

[Corinna Vinschen]

"Tolkin, Steve" wrote:
> 3.  Why doesn't ls tem* find the directory named temp ?

Your TEMP directory has uppercase characters in it's name.
The pattern matching is case sensitive by default.
If you call `ls temp', no pattern matching takes place,
so the directory is found because the Windows file systems
aren't case sensitive but only case preserving.

> 580/temp> rm *.tmp
> 
> -- No error message but the files are still there !

The files you are trying to rm are currently in use by
another app. Cygwin has saved your rm request and will
try to remove the files as soon as they are not
exclusively locked by the other app.

> -- I start to suspect the leading tilde
> 
> 588/temp> echo ~
> /usr/home
> 589/temp> echo ~a
> 
> -- A blank line is emitted.  Why?

Because there's no user `a'. The behaviour of the tilde
is intentionally. ~ = $HOME of the current user, ~foo =
$HOME of user foo. You may use it as a convenient abbreviation
in paths. If you don't want that, use quotes.

Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen
Cygwin Developer
Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat company

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Re: rm does not remove; ls tem* does not find temp; echo ~foo

[Corinna Vinschen]

Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> > 588/temp> echo ~
> > /usr/home
> > 589/temp> echo ~a
> >
> > -- A blank line is emitted.  Why?
> 
> Because there's no user `a'. The behaviour of the tilde
> is intentionally. ~ = $HOME of the current user, ~foo =
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     For clearness: It's a shell feature, not a special
     cygwin feature.

> $HOME of user foo. You may use it as a convenient abbreviation
> in paths. If you don't want that, use quotes.

Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen
Cygwin Developer
Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat company

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