Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!leah!wfh58
From: wfh58@leah.Albany.Edu (William F. Hammond)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Phantom of the Operating System
Summary: It is documented
Message-ID: <2281@leah.Albany.Edu>
Date: 13 Dec 89 16:10:59 GMT
References: <44410@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Dept of Math & Stat, SUNYA, Albany, NY
Lines: 30

In article <44410@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bear@bu-pub.bu.edu (Blair M. Burtan) writes:
> . . .
> I'm using ARP 1.3 :-) and somehow, I managed to create a file
> on my harddrive called *.  Major oops.  You can't say "delete *"
> because ARP kicks in an deletes the entire directory.  You can't
> . . .
In addition to the user configurable "ARP escape character" that has the 
recommended character value '\' rather than the native AmigaDOS '*',
there is a special ARP escape for special-characters-in-filenames.

                 It is ' itself.

Thus,    delete '*     will delete the file with name equal to the string
"*".  To delete the file with name equal to the string "*.", use the command

delete '*.

(the '.' is part of the command).

This escape for special characters in filenames applies also to the other
special-characters-in-filenames including ()[]|'#?   (if they survived this
mailing).  But note: to delete the file named "<" the ' escape is not right
since the character '<' is not a special-character-in-filenames even though
it is special to the shell.  In this case simply use    delete "<"
(and this is the end of the sentence).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
William F. Hammond                   Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics
518-442-4625                         SUNYA, Albany, NY 12222
wfh58@leah.albany.edu                wfh58@albnyvms.bitnet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------