File without a name appears in a dired buffer

File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Davin Pearson]

Here is a pasting of my ABBA folder.   Note the spurious line at the top of the file.  In other dired buffers more than one of these lines appears. The command

rm ""

doesn't remove the file, instead it complains about a non-existent file: `'
no such file or directory.

  c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
  total used in directory 1 available 57327936
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52 .
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 06-07 06:38 ..
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 06-02 03:00 1973  Ring Ring
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1974  Waterloo
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1975  ABBA
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1976  All About ABBA
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1976  Arrival
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1977  The Album
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1979  Voulez-Vous
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1980  Super Trouper
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1981  The Visitors
  drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-19  Pictures
  -rw-rw-rw-  1 Davin Pearson  None           359 06-02 03:02 a.wav

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Barry Margolin]

In article <a36c4b30-e40e-46e3-82c7-4f40c2025634@googlegroups.com>,
 Davin Pearson <davin.pearson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Here is a pasting of my ABBA folder.   Note the spurious line at the top of 
> the file.  In other dired buffers more than one of these lines appears. The 
> command
> 
> rm ""
> 
> doesn't remove the file, instead it complains about a non-existent file: `'
> no such file or directory.

It's a directory, not a file. And the name is probably some number of 
spaces. Use

mv " "* bettername

to rename it.

> 
>   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
>   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52 .
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 06-07 06:38 ..
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 06-02 03:00 1973  Ring Ring
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1974  Waterloo
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1975  ABBA
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1976  All About 
>   ABBA
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1976  Arrival
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1977  The Album
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1979  
>   Voulez-Vous
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1980  Super 
>   Trouper
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-22  1981  The 
>   Visitors
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 2015-11-19  Pictures
>   -rw-rw-rw-  1 Davin Pearson  None           359 06-02 03:02 a.wav

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Yuri Khan]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 8:45 PM, Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> It's a directory, not a file. And the name is probably some number of
> spaces.

That’s unlikely, seeing as the path includes a drive letter. Windows
does not easily allow space-only names.

>>   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
>>   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
>>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
>>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52 .


@Davin: What does “dir” in plain old CMD say about this directory? If
you use Cygwin or MSYS, what does their “ls -al” say?

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Davin Pearson]

Here is what CMD says: I am using cygwin 64 bit.  Note how the empty
file name does not occur, it only appears inside Emacs version 23.1.1:

C:\Downloads\ABBA Discography [24 96]>ls -al
total 22437
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 May 19 06:52 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Jun  7 06:38 ..
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Jun  2 03:00 '1973  Ring Ring'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1974  Waterloo'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1975  ABBA'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1976  All About ABBA'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1976  Arrival'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1977  The Album'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1979  Voulez-Vous'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1980  Super Trouper'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 22  2015 '1981  The Visitors'
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators 22873347 Nov 19  2015 'ABBA. '$'\320\236\320\277\320\270\321\201\320\260\320\275\320\270\320\265'' '$'\320\277\321\200\320\265\320\267\320\265\320\275\321\202\320\260\321\206\320\270\320\270''..pdf'
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators        0 Nov 19  2015 Pictures
-rwxrwxrwx  1 Davin Pearson  None                359 Jun  2 03:02 a.wav


On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 3:17:18 AM UTC+12, Yuri Khan wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 8:45 PM, Barry Margolin <barmar at alum dot mit dot edu> wrote:
> 
> > It's a directory, not a file. And the name is probably some number of
> > spaces.
> 
> That’s unlikely, seeing as the path includes a drive letter. Windows
> does not easily allow space-only names.
> 
> >>   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
> >>   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
> >>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
> >>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52 .
> 
> 
> @Davin: What does “dir” in plain old CMD say about this directory? If
> you use Cygwin or MSYS, what does their “ls -al” say?

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Yuri Khan]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 5:14 AM, Davin Pearson <davin.pearson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is what CMD says: I am using cygwin 64 bit.  Note how the empty
> file name does not occur, it only appears inside Emacs version 23.1.1:

However, I notice this suspicious entry which does not appear in your
Emacs listing above:

> -rwxrwxrwx+ 1 Administrators Administrators 22873347 Nov 19  2015 'ABBA. '$'\320\236\320\277\320\270\321\201\320\260\320\275\320\270\320\265'' '$'\320\277\321\200\320\265\320\267\320\265\320\275\321\202\320\260\321\206\320\270\320\270''..pdf'

The date and mode don’t match, though.

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 00:57:52 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Davin Pearson <davin.pearson@gmail.com>
> 
> Here is a pasting of my ABBA folder.   Note the spurious line at the top of the file.  In other dired buffers more than one of these lines appears. The command
> 
> rm ""
> 
> doesn't remove the file, instead it complains about a non-existent file: `'
> no such file or directory.
> 
>   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
>   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
>   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here

What version of Emacs is that?

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Davin Pearson]

On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 3:01:42 AM UTC+12, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 00:57:52 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: Davin Pearson <davin dot pearson at gmail dot com>
> > 
> > Here is a pasting of my ABBA folder.   Note the spurious line at the top of the file.  In other dired buffers more than one of these lines appears. The command
> > 
> > rm ""
> > 
> > doesn't remove the file, instead it complains about a non-existent file: `'
> > no such file or directory.
> > 
> >   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
> >   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
> >   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
> 
> What version of Emacs is that?

23.1.1

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 16:00:40 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Davin Pearson <davin.pearson@gmail.com>
> 
> > >   c:/Downloads/ABBA Discography [24 96]:
> > >   total used in directory 1 available 57327936
> > >   drwxrwxrwx  1 Administrators Administrators   0 05-19 06:52      <--- here
> > 
> > What version of Emacs is that?
> 
> 23.1.1

Then I suggest to upgrade to at least Emacs 24.4.  Your problem is due
to a file name which cannot be displayed using characters from the
current system codepage, so it shows the 8+3 alias for such file
names, and in your case the short alias appears to be empty.  Emacs
24.4 lifts that limitation, so you should see the full file name in
that case.

Re: File without a name appears in a dired buffer

[Davin Pearson]

On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 2:47:55 PM UTC+12, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Then I suggest to upgrade to at least Emacs 24.4.  Your problem is due
> to a file name which cannot be displayed using characters from the
> current system codepage, so it shows the 8+3 alias for such file
> names, and in your case the short alias appears to be empty.  Emacs
> 24.4 lifts that limitation, so you should see the full file name in
> that case.

Thanks for the tip.  I will do shortly.