Retreading my steps - deleting directories with hyphens ...

I had an issue whilst trying to sort out some directories on my Mac, containing hyphens ( - ) as part of their names: -

Untracked files:
  (use "git add ..." to include in what will be committed)

--header
--url

which were causing fgrep to choke: -

fgrep -R

usage: fgrep [-abcDEFGHhIiJLlmnOoqRSsUVvwxZ] [-A num] [-B num] [-C[num]]

[-e pattern] [-f file] [--binary-files=value] [--color=when]

[--context[=num]] [--directories=action] [--label] [--line-buffered]

[--null] [pattern] [file ...]

I couldn't easily delete them: -

rm -Rf "--header"

rm: illegal option -- -

usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...

       unlink file

ls *header*

ls: illegal option -- -

usage: ls [-ABCFGHLOPRSTUWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]

rm -Rf '--url'

rm: illegal option -- -
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
       unlink file

but I remembered hitting this a while back ....

which takes me back to a post that I wrote back in 2010: -

 Removing files with hyphenated filenames in Linux 


I'd had the same problem a few days ago - the problem is that the hyphen ( - ) character is seen by the rm command as an option.

The solution ? A quick rummage around Google threw this up: -

http://serverfault.com/questions/37823/how-to-delete-file-with-option-character-in-name-in-linux

Use the "--" option to tell rm that there are no more options coming, hence the command becomes: -

rm -Rf -- -6895560/

Job done :-)



So I tried that: -

rm -Rf -- --url

rm -Rf -- --header

which did the trick.

And now fgrep is happy ....