How to deal with file starting with"--"

[legendbb]

Someone crated a file with starting "--" as starting file_name.

I have "--file-name", with no GUI; all commands I tried to operate this file return with error since they interpret this "--" as argument tag.

Tried to use quote, doesn't help.

For curiosity, how to deal with it?

Thanks,

[Irithori]

- escape the - with \
- the -print0 of the find command also helps
- ls -i shows the inode, which then could be used to do operations on the file

[legendbb]

# mv \--index.html index.html
mv: unrecognized option `--index.html'

could not get "\" to work, but I found a walk around by just using absolute path.

Thanks,

[Irithori]

Ah sorry. There is a much easier way.

You can tell the commands (probably not all, so be carefull), that there wont be any more options by giving a --

touch -- --index.html
ls -la -- --index.html
mv -- --index.html index.html
ls -la -- index.html

[atreyu]

and if you're lazy and don't want to read man pages - open up nautilus, browse to the file and do whatever with it...

[allwimb]

you could also use quotes for example cp "--myfile" "destination"

[netzgewitter]

I don't think this works. Putting an option in quotes still leaves it the same option. It will complain that --myfile is not a valid option. Whereas

cp -- --myfile destination

will work, because it tells cp that everything after the -- is not an option.