Re: [ILUG] deleting file called '--exclude'

From: John P. Looney (Kate) (jplooney-ilug at domain online.ie)
Date: Tue 11 Jul 2000 - 09:57:57 IST


On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 09:38:29AM +0100, Guest, Ken mentioned:
> I don't know how I managed it, but I have a rather large
> file on styx named "--exclude".
> Any attempt to rm it or mv it to a deletable file name
> results in the program stating something along the lines of
> 'option not supported'.

 My god man, read the 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.

Kate

-- 
The words of the unwary are apt to cause needless pain and bloody violence.
                                                        - Zen Master Greg


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