I can't use anything that specifies the file by name as the name is effectively null. Perl tends to have more direct access to system calls and system library functions. I haven't written in C for around 25 years, and never on a Mac, so Perl would be easier.

The approaches I can see are:

a) rename the file

b) remove the inode-equivalent from the directory entry and let fsck fix it. (FS is Apple's HFS+)

c) set the inode use count to zero and let fsck tidy it. (Can a stat() structure be re-written to do that, or is that trapped?)

Thanks, David