Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:9109 comp.unix.wizards:7679
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: command line options
Message-ID: <4751@chinet.UUCP>
Date: 10 Apr 88 03:44:00 GMT
References: <2414@zyx.UUCP> <8039@elsie.UUCP> <7628@brl-smoke.ARPA> <143@gsg.UUCP> <48917@sun.uucp> <864@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: les@chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 18

In article <864@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>In article <48917@sun.uucp>, guy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
>> > You miss the point; -? already has the desired property; it does not
>a time-honoured hack for protecting important directories, some people
>create an empty file called "-i", so that an
>	rm *
>command will turn into
>	rm -i {everything else}
>So files matching "-?" are quite likely to exist.


If a person knows enough about shell behaviour to create such a hack
he should also know enough to quote the "-?" to prevent expansion.

On the other hand, I would be more sympathetic toward a novice that
accidentally managed to create a file named -? and wondered why the
* no longer worked at all.
  Les Mikesell