Re: How do you remove files with bad/wierd names

["Eric G . Miller" <egm2@jps.net>]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 10:14:19PM -0500, Marshal Kar-Cheung Wong wrote:
> I was wondering how to remove a file by the name of --help.tgz?
> (Don't ask...Okay if you really must know, I typed in tgz --help and I
> get that file.  There's no man page for tgz, and I think tgz shouldn't
> accept things starting with -- as file names...)  rm always takes it
> as an option, even if quotes, double-quoted, backslashed,
> regular-expressioned.  Any suggestions?
> 

I don't think tgz is generally called directly. You probably want to use
'tar -czf mydir.tgz mydir/'.  Anyway, from the rm manpage:
 
       GNU rm, like every program that uses the  getopt  function
       to  parse  its  arguments,  lets  you use the -- option to
       indicate that all following arguments are non-options.  To
       remove  a  file  called `-f' in the current directory, you
       could type either
              rm -- -f
       or
              rm ./-f
       The Unix rm program's use of a single `-' for this purpose
       predates the development of the getopt standard syntax.

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| Eric G. Miller                        egm2@jps.net |
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