I have a file named "-"

[Kartik Subbarao]

In article <6661 at idunno.Princeton.EDU> pfalstad at phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Falstad) writes:
>tchrist at convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) wrote:
>>From the keyboard of gt2807a at prism.gatech.EDU (Benjamin H. Cowan):
>>:  I have a file whose name consists of the single character "-".  I can't
>>:rm it or mv it or cat it or more it or anything to it.  How can I get rid of
>>:it?
>
>>Ask a coworker.
>>
>>Burn your computer.
>>
>>Throw out the disk.
>
>Ask a coworker!?!  Please, please; let's at least answer the question
>before tempers get out of control.
>
>If you have a file that simply has a '/' in it, you can
>just quote the slash:
>
>   rm "/"
>
>But a file with a - in it takes special handling.  Fortunately there are
>many ways to remove a file like this.

[numerous software solutions deleted]

Aww, that's the problem with you CS majors: Now an EE like myself, I'd do
it this way;

    Go to the disk and assert the write signal for the particular track and
    sector, zero in on the right place, and poof -- your file is gone.

This is guaranteed to be the simplest and fastest way to do things, provably in order n log n time. (oops, that's a CS saying).

			-Kartik


e
x
t
r
a

l
i
n
e
s

f
o
r

i
n
e
w
s


--
internet# find . -name core -exec cat {} \; |& tee /dev/tty*
subbarao at phoenix.Princeton.EDU -| Internet
kartik at silvertone.Princeton.EDU (NeXT mail)  
SUBBARAO at PUCC.BITNET			          - Bitnet