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From: bio_zwbb@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dr. William B. Busa)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: How do I deal with (null) filenames?
Message-ID: <2131@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 26 Jul 89 19:34:43 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University
Lines: 20

I am using some software which has a horrible bug -- it generates data
files which have null names; for instance, ls will list these files as
(null).001
(null).002
(null).003
etc. These truly are nulls -- in an alphabetical directory listing, 
they are listed *before* . and ..! 

My question is this: how can I change these to manageable filenames? I
realize that I can address these files as *.001, etc., but this does not
solve my problem, because there will be lots of well-formed file names
matching the pattern in the same directory. I think I need a solution
which will specifically address nulls. Any suggestions?

Dr. William B. Busa
Dept. of Biology
The Johns Hopkins University
(301) 338-8207

bio_zwbb@jhunix