[ILUG] How to delete -1234 ?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Timothy Murphy (tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie):

> How do I delete this file, called "-1234" ?

UNIX FAQ question 2.1:

2.1)  How do I remove a file whose name begins with a "-" ?

      Figure out some way to name the file so that it doesn't begin
      with a dash.  The simplest answer is to use

            rm ./-filename

      (assuming "-filename" is in the current directory, of course.)
      This method of avoiding the interpretation of the "-" works with
      other commands too.

      Many commands, particularly those that have been written to use
      the "getopt(3)" argument parsing routine, accept a "--" argument
      which means "this is the last option, anything after this is not
      an option", so your version of rm might handle "rm -- -filename".
      Some versions of rm that don't use getopt() treat a single "-"
      in the same way, so you can also try "rm - -filename".

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part2/section-1.html