problematic file name
 

Hi

I downloaded a file with a name starting with a hyphen,
and I am having a whole lot of problem dealing with it
because every command I used with it wanted to treat it
as some kind of flag. Eventually, I used Konqueror to
rename it, but the whole experience made me wonder if it
is possible to work with such a filename in a shell.
Suggestions?

Thanks.

One easy way is to add a leading "./".
Some commands have an "-f" switch that means a filename follows.
Some commands accept "--" (two dashes) as a switch to mean that no more switches follow.
If the remainder of the filename is fairly unique, you may be able to replace the '-' with a '?'.

Just guessing: Enclose it in quotes, or put a \ right in front of the -

The best way is simply to use ./-filename, as KenJackson said. Stumped me for a while too.

If you have a look at the man pages for i.e. rm and mv, the option list can be terminated by '--'.
So mv -- -xxx.txt yyy.txt will move the file -xxx.txt to yyy.txt without problems.

[edit]bit slow[/edit]

Thanks for all your help.

And fyi, quotes and \ would not work because they just protect the string from the shell, and
do not modify how the program, be it mv or rm, would parse the name.