Removing files that have special characters in their name

Question

How do I remove files, with specific names.. For example, my file name is

This File Example (England).txt
This File Example (US).txt

I want to remove all the files with (England) in the name.

So I tried,

rm -f "*(Eng*"

But it doesn't work. Is there something needed for special chars?

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Jesin · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-26T21:15:46.370

0

This should do it:

rm -f ./*'(England)'*

edited Nov 26 '17 at 21:15

answered Nov 26 '17 at 01:59

Jesin

Or just `rm -f *(England)*` – Droow Nov 26 '17 at 02:00
1

@Droow That doesn't work. – iBug Nov 26 '17 at 02:57
@iBug Yes it does https://imgur.com/a/IBeFy, but maybe my ZSH is automatically escaping it for me ;) – Droow Nov 26 '17 at 03:05
@Droow I use Bash and it fails. Zsh isn't the default shell on most systems :) – iBug Nov 26 '17 at 03:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 26 '17 at 02:56

0

Escape the special ones:

rm -f *\(Eng*
       ^

Or use single quotes for literal parts:

rm -f *'(Eng'*
       ^    ^

answered Nov 26 '17 at 02:56

iBug

rm -f *'(Eng'* worked.. Thanks! – Borg357 Nov 26 '17 at 03:46
@Borg357 You can always accept answer that you deem helpful by clicking the grey tick beside it. – iBug Nov 26 '17 at 04:32
This glitches on filenames that start with `-`, which is why I recommend using `./` at the start of the glob pattern. – Jesin Nov 26 '17 at 21:16

2 Answers2