command line options

[der Mouse]

In article <4751 at chinet.UUCP>, les at chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
> In article <864 at cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok at quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>> 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.

(and hope there are no files beginning with control characters or
space-through-comma! :-)

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

You don't get the point.  The -i file is created by the one who knows,
to protect the directory against "rm *" issued by one who doesn't.
That is, files matching -? are likely to exist in directories where
novices are assumed to be issuing commands.

					der Mouse

			uucp: mouse at mcgill-vision.uucp
			arpa: mouse at larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu