Moved a directory to an unknown .../ place (three dots)

Question

I came across this weird situation when I accidentally moved one of my directory to an unknown place I am unable to find.

What I did was executed this command -

/opt/lampp/htdocs/cake$ mv cakephp/ .../

It did executed without any error, and now I am not able to locate my directory.

I googled this issue but I am not getting any help.

Any help will be appreciated.

Another case of Linux assuming that you know what you're doing. And since it starts with a dot, it's hidden by default. — Joe, Jul 17 '16 at 07:30

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 08 '16 at 13:06

25

You renamed the directory cakephp in /opt/lampp/htdocs/cake to .... Your command was perfectly valid, therefore it did not produce an error.

You should be able to find the directory at /opt/lampp/htdocs/cake/.... Note that files/folder starting with a dot are hidden (hence you need to use, e.g., ls -a /opt/lampp/htdocs/cake to see it).

answered Jul 08 '16 at 13:06

Malte Skoruppa

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Thanks for reply... I figured it out when i searched it with `triple dot ubuntu` in google. – Hirdesh Vishwdewa Jul 08 '16 at 13:08
Although, to be a bit pedantic, you shouldn't have had permission to rename a directory under `/opt` without `sudo`. – Jos Jul 08 '16 at 13:10
Thanks @Jos Its my personal development machine so I have given my `htdocs` a `777` – Hirdesh Vishwdewa Jul 08 '16 at 13:15
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@easycoder that gives anyone rights to create a file, I'd restore it to `755` and do `chown -R $USER:$USER` – grooveplex Jul 08 '16 at 13:29
1

You are right @Jos. I will change that on priority... thanks – Hirdesh Vishwdewa Jul 08 '16 at 14:07

Moved a directory to an unknown .../ place (three dots)

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