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How would you create and then delete a file that begins with the symbol "-"? Try it.

I can't write the command for this question and I don't why.

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  • You should think about your career or education choices. The answer to your previous question is perfectly applicable here. Transfer of learning is an important ability.
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Apr 10, 2011 at 16:14

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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touch -- <filename>
rm -- <filename>

-- ends the command line switches.

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  • -f is not really necessary here.
    – R. Martinho Fernandes
    Apr 10, 2011 at 15:28
  • @Martinho: fair point. Removed it. It's more of a habit, I guess ;)
    – 0xC0000022L
    Apr 10, 2011 at 15:29
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Or, without using the GNU -- convention, you can use ./:

Thus touch ./-filename and rm ./-filename

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  • The advantage is this working on any system, including MacOS X.
    – Rich Homolka
    Jul 26, 2012 at 17:45
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You can use -- switch. For example rm -- -test will delete -test file.
You can also use a path of the file. For example rm ./-test will delete -test file.

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The above are much easier, and you should use the './' trick (it would work on MacOSX or BSD for example), but for completeness:

Use ls -i to get the inode number, and then use find . -inum INODENUMBER -delete -print

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