topic How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character in Operating System - HP-UX

How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

John Hickey_1 — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:44:21 GMT

How do I remove a file which starts with a - (minus/dash) character?

eg. filename is -t
Have tried rm "-t", rm '-t' rm -t
All give an error message, because it thinks that the dash is a opt/arg flag

Have also tried considered using rm ?t but when doing ls ?t, the wildcard expansion does not seem to be working correctly

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Andreas Voss — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:46:27 GMT

Hi,

simly type:
rm ./-t

Cheers

Andrew

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Danny Engelbarts — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:48:05 GMT

John,

try a rm -t

this works on most "weird" characters in filenames (like * spaces tabs or control chars)

Greetz, Danny.

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Stefan Farrelly — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:48:43 GMT

or use;

rm -- -t

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

John Palmer — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:49:02 GMT

The easiest way is to use the '--' construct to say that the list of options is complete:-

rm -- -t

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Danny Engelbarts — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:50:00 GMT

oookay ... the backslash i typed doesn't show up [sigh] so that was;

rm [backslash]-t

Greetz, Danny.

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Kofi ARTHIABAH — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:50:06 GMT

John:

this question had been answered earlier in the forum... you would have to do:

rm -- -t

cheers.

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Andreas Voss — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:51:51 GMT

Just a hint for Danny:
If you want to post the backslash in your reply type it twice :-)

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Rita C Workman — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:05:23 GMT

Here's another little tip...removing files using the instance number, when you can't remove it with normal rm commands. It is something you would need to be very
careful doing ! But here it is:

cd to where the file is located and type: ls -i

This will list the files with their corresponding instance number. Now just do a find from where you are and execute the remove for that instance number

find . -inum -exec rm {} \;

Just a thought,

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

John Hickey_1 — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:24:39 GMT

Thanks to all for quick responses.

Note that rm \-t does not work, but rm .\-t does work
(not sure why)

Re: How to remove a file which has starts with - (minus/dash) character

Kofi ARTHIABAH — Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:29:20 GMT

here you are with links..
http://my1.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0xe5810559ff7cd4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0xb1800559ff7cd4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html