rm command problem

[DAve]

Efren Bravo wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Accidentally I've created a file called -exclude
> and now I cann't delete it.
> 
> I tried with:
> 
> rm -exclude and rm *exclude but it returns this:
> 
> rm: illegal option -- -
> usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dIPRrvW] file ...
>        unlink file
> 
> How can I delete it?

You have probably found that anything you try errors because the shell 
thinks -e is a switch. The easiest way is to find the files inode number 
and delete the file using that.

director# ls -i
107008 .bash_history    107760 .login           107759 .mail_aliases 
107764 .profile         107765 .shrc
107758 .cshrc           107761 .login_conf      107762 .mailrc 
107763 .rhosts

then use find to remove the file.

director# find . -inum 107763 -exec rm -i {} \;
remove ./.rhosts? y

This works for all manner of funky file names. I had done that many 
times before, generally from not reading man pages and passing switches 
to programs that didn't expect it, or by piping commands incorrectly.

DAve
-- 
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Maybe they forgot who made that choice possible.