Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!zen!frank
From: frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Trying to remove a file called "-ls"
Summary: option parsing
Message-ID: <1540@zen.UUCP>
Date: 12 Mar 89 18:07:15 GMT
References: <570@sdrc.UUCP> <2087@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <2088@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <2089@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Reply-To: frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Organization: Zengrange Limited, Leeds, England
Lines: 39

In article <2089@helios.ee.lbl.gov> leres@helios.ee.lbl.gov
 (Craig Leres) writes:
>John Milburn writes:
>>In article <570@sdrc.UUCP> diblanch@sdrc.UUCP (Jeff Blanchet) writes:
>>>I seem to have stumbled across a bug that occurs on the HP. I created a file
>>>called "-ls". Now on any other UNIX system all I have to do is issue the
>>>command "rm -i *".

I'd be surprised if this only complained on HP-UX.  The behaviour you
describe is what I'd expect on a Sys V machine which tries to be consistent
about option parsing, simply treating the file name as if it were another
set of command line switches.  It is not a bug.

>>Try rm "-ls".

This definitely won't make any difference -- quoting is a shell mechanism
for assembling arguments, and isn't perceived by the invoked commands.

>This may work under hpux, but it doesn't under Berkeley Unix. My
>favorate way to remove a file with a leading dash is:
>
>	% rm foo -ls
>
>It doesn't matter if foo exists or not; once it sees an argument that
>doesn't have a leading dash, it stops looking.

But its exit status might be a problem if this is in a shell script, say.

Now for the answer: to terminate option parsing on rm (and most other
commands which accept command line switches), put a '--' in the command
line.  Beyond that, anything starting with a '-' won't be picked up
as an option.  So, to remove the offending file, use "rm -- -ls".
This works on both 300 and 800 series HP-UX (and probably also 500).

It is down to the individual command to recognise the '--' convention,
though; your mileage may vary.
--
Frank Wales, Systems Manager,        [frank@zen.co.uk<->mcvax!zen.co.uk!frank]
Zengrange Ltd., Greenfield Rd., Leeds, ENGLAND, LS9 8DB. (+44) 532 489048 x217