Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 15:03:05 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Larry Rosenman <ler@lerctr.org>, Daniel.Bye@uk.uu.net Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Pesky file Message-ID: <14888.4617.148599.530943@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <119603073@toto.iv>
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Larry Rosenman <ler@lerctr.org> types: > * Daniel Bye <Daniel.Bye@uk.uu.net> [001201 05:21]: > > Hi all, > > > > Here's a question for a Friday morning... Somehow, I have ended up with a > > file named -help in my home directory. How can I get rid of it? It is 0 > > bytes, > > and if I try to rm, mv, unlink it etc, the shell interprets the file name as > > an > > argument to the program and spews forth errors. Backslash escaping it > > doesn't work, and neither does quoting it. > rm -- -help > > or rm -i ?help That won't work any more than "rm *help" would. The problem with both of them is that the shell expands the metacharacters, so that rm sees the "-" first, so thinks it's an argument. Just FWIW, if you happen to be on a system that doesn't recognize the "--" convention (or need to run a command that doesn't), you can always do "rm ./-help". Trivia question: what two bytes can you *not* put in a Unix filename? <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Unix/FreeBSD consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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