On Wed, 8 Mar 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> the other day i was trying to convert a .ps file to .epsi file. i ran ps2epsi -hand
>it created a file -h.epsi. now when i attempt to delete it i get an error
> message. if i `rm -h.epsi` i get a message rm: invalid option -- h Try rm --help
> how do i remove this file or is it there forever?
Most Unix commands that accept command line arguments expect options
to begin with a '-' character. If these options are single characters
they can be concatenated together in a single string preceded by the
'-' character.
rm -h.epsi
rm thinks you're asking it to remove something with the options
h, ., e, p, s and i. It doesn;t know about those options AND you
haven't given it a file name (that's what it thinks even if YOU think
you know that you have given it a file name).
The trick with dealing with files that begin with a '-' is to prefix
the file name with ./ as in
rm ./-h.epsi
Now the command will not recognise this as an option and treat it
accordingly.
Some commands can be told to stop processing options with the special
option -- as in
grep -l -- -w *.pl
which would list the names of the files ending in .pl that contain the
string "-w".
Not all programs follow this convention.
Regards
Peter
----------
Peter Samuel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Technical Consultant or at present:
eServ. Pty Ltd [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: +61 2 9206 3410 Fax: +61 2 9281 1301
"If you kill all your unhappy customers, you'll only have happy ones left"
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