less and vi fail on file whose name begins with +

[Glen Barber]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 01:03:30AM -0400, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> I notice in my latest build of FreeBSD 9.0-STABLE (#11), a problem with less and vi with files whose name begins with +.
> 
> These files occur in /var/db/pkg/(pkg-name)/
> 
> For instance, if I cd /var/db/pkg/png-1.4.8
> and type 
> less +DESC 
> I get
> 
> Missing filename ("less --help" for help)
> 
> but if I type the filename with full path, or even 
> less ./+DESC 
> it works OK
> 

less(1) is expecting '+' to be followed by additional arguments.

If you use 'less -- +DESC', for example, it should work fine.  Same with
vi(1).

Regards,

Glen