Rm file named '--log-file'

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

For some stupid reason I used a series of stupid switches and created this file, now can't seem to get rm to believe it's a file and not a switch :slight_smile:

Yeah, I know, I know, but seriously, how do I delete it?

2

Reminds me of the stories I heard of line errors on ancient teletypes creating bizarre filenames.. I couldn't understand how until someone mentioned >'s appearing in the wrong place.

Most commands take the -- option to convince them to take any following arguments literally, rm -- --weirfilename

You could also prepend it with an absolute or relative path, rm /path/to/--file or rm ./--file

1 Like
3

absolute path worked, thanks :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

You might want to use wildcards together with the -i flag: rm -i *log-file .

5

You could also use the i-node:-

ls -li | grep log-file

The first column is the i-node, then you can do this:-

find . -inum inum -exec rm {} \;

Just another way if the others don't. It can be very good for removing files with space in them too.

Robin
Robin