I recently had to unzip a mail archive and one of the users had a mail folder called:

---------Archive

They obviously put all the dashes to move it to the top of some tree, or maybe to make it stand out more. Regardless, I cannot get into it now:

[joe@mail1 inbox]# cd --------Archive
-bash: cd: --: invalid option
cd: usage: cd [-L|-P] [dir]
[joe@mail1 inbox]# cd '--------Archive'/
-bash: cd: --: invalid option
cd: usage: cd [-L|-P] [dir]
[joe@mail1 inbox]# cd "--------Archive"/
-bash: cd: --: invalid option
cd: usage: cd [-L|-P] [dir]

Notice that single quotes and double quotes yield the same result. Other operations (rm mv) result in the same. Any suggestions?

The answer was simple:

cd ./--------Archive

was what worked

You can use "--" as an argument to say that you will not be using any more flags. Thus it will not interpolate any of the dashes as additional flags. That, or you can escape them all.

$ cd -- "-----stuff/"
$ rm -rf -- "-----stuff/"

et cetera

Hi,

Try this:

cd -- --------Archive

The -- tells cd that all after it is part of the directory name.

To rename the ------Archive directory: mv -- ------Archive/ Archive

To remove it: m -rf -- ------Archive

Hope this helps

PS: To create one: mkdir -- ------Archive

Excellent suggestions! Thanks everyone for the contribution!