TIP file starting with dash

This article is part of the Tips & Tricks series.

It has been suggested that this article be Merged into one article with TIP Dealing with files that start with a dash (Discuss)

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Very small tips to manipulate files starting with a dash (-) with bash.

[edit] The problem

Typically when an emerge fails, it leaves a directory like:

/var/db/pkg/sys-libs/-MERGING-glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r2

If I change to the directory /var/db/pkg/sys-libs/

cd /var/db/pkg/sys-libs/

I can't remove the file by simply doing:

rm -MERGING-glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r2

Since the name begins with a dash, rm (and all the other commands) believe that 'M' is a parameter, which isn't right.

Simply add ./ before the name to avoid this problem.

rm ./-MERGING-glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r2

Or add -- after the command to indicate end of options.

rm -- -MERGING-glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r2