Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com From: "Dave Korn" To: Cc: "'Cygwin Mail List'" Subject: RE: Can't delete file Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:47:22 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Jan 2004 10:47:22.0198 (UTC) FILETIME=[C88C4F60:01C3DF42] > -----Original Message----- > From: Aurangzeb M. Agha > Dave -- > > That worked! Thank goodness, I thought I'd have to live with > an unwanted folder forever. Hooray! > I'm curious--was what you suggested possible just because I was lucky? > What if the names of the files had been even longer; would > your suggestion not have worked?! > > Thanks so much. > > Sincerely, > > Zeb Yep, it could have been the case. It's a known class of bugs in software: when special characters need to be escaped, the effect of doing so is to lengthen any string, such as a filename, that contains them, thereby sometimes making them longer than some presupposed limit somewhere in the software or operating system. (It's also a known cause of network security holes through buffer overflows in server software.) If there had been a whole load more at and ampersand signs in that filename, you might have had to get *real* tricky with it :) Fortunately, reducing the left-hand part of the path did the job. Glad to help! cheers, DaveK -- Can't think of a witty .sigline today.... -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/