[MLUG] deleting a file named '-'

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

While I was testing a shell script and learning a few tricks, I
accidentally created a file called '-'.  That was it's name -- just a
hyphen.  That file was a nightmare to delete, at least on Solaris with
tcsh.  I tried all the command-line tricks -- quotes, back slashes,
renaming, rm -i *, rm -i ?, etc., etc., etc.  Finally, I called up a
graphical file manager and deleted it that way.

Darn, I was going to ask how to delete a file with that name but I just
figured it out:

rm ./-

That did it.  Why didn't I think of that before?  Oh well.  It seems
simple now, but believe me, I tried *many* reasonable things that all
totally failed.

Ever have a file named '*' (without the quotes) that you wanted to delete?  
Be careful!  How about a file named '!' (without the quotes)?  I've dealt
with such mysteries easily, but the darned '-' had me perplexed for at
least 5 minutes.  :-)

Mike

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