Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 17:03:22 -0500 (EST) From: Joe Oliveiro <joe@advancewebhosting.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: Larry Rosenman <ler@lerctr.org>, Daniel.Bye@uk.uu.net, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Pesky file Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0012011703120.17623-100000@joe.pythonvideo.com> In-Reply-To: <14888.4617.148599.530943@guru.mired.org>
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rm -rf "-help" will remove the file FreeBSD - The BEST upgrade you can do to NT! On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Mike Meyer wrote: > 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 > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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