How can I open a file whose name starts with "-"?

Posted by PJ on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by PJ
Published on 2010-03-21T04:58:58Z Indexed on 2010/03/21 5:01 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 418

Filed under:

bash

|

zsh

|

ubuntu

I am running Ubuntu, and would like to open a file whose file name starts with "-"(minus). When I try to open the file with pico or vim, the command thinks that the "-" sign is an option for the command.

I tried enclosing the file name with quotes ('), but I still get the same error.

I tried with bash and zsh, but still the same error.

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about bash

launching a program from bash causes bash to go to new prompt

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When I run a program from the console, e.g. me@box:~$ firefox I expect the console to log error messages (I think this is std out or std err?) and other items from the program, firefox in this case. But today I notice that bash just opens the program and goes to a new prompt, e.g. me@box:~$… >>> More
How to debug a .bash_profile

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Every command fails with "command not found" after changing .bash_profile?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I was updating my .bash_profile, and unfortunetly I made a few updates and now I am getting: env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory env: bash: No such file or directory -bash: tar: command… >>> More
Is there any fundamental difference between piping in mac and linux?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
ps -e | grep bash sample output from a linux machine: 1128 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 7491 pts/7 00:00:00 bash 12651 pts/14 00:00:00 bash 16145 pts/2 00:00:00 bash sample output from a mac machine: 58352 ttys000 0:00.09 login -pfl username /bin/bash -c exec -la bash /bin/bash 58353 ttys000… >>> More
why is $0 set to -bash?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
First login process name seems to be set to "-bash", but if I subshell then it becomes "bash". for example: root@nowere:~# echo $0 -bash root@nowere:~# bash root@nowere:~# echo $0 bash -bash is causing some scripts to fail, such as . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend… >>> More

Related posts about zsh

Is fish or zsh better for shell programming?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm a bash user willing to switch to a more friendly and advanced shell. I read a lot of good things about zsh, but I gave a quick test at fish and it seems great too. Both seem very close in term of features, what is your opinion about those two shells especially as regards shell programming? >>> More
Default shell for running scripts (w/o shebang) in macos?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have ZSH as default shell in MacOS, everything is working fine. ZSH is installed as brew package, Ive set default shell in my account, new shell is listed in /etc/shells... everything is set, like I've said. I have some shell scripts in which I use some commands from zsh, like print. When I execute… >>> More
To get a prompt which indicates Git-branch in Zsh

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I run the following codes separately as my prompt unsuccessfully in .zshrc. This suggests me that apparently I do not have a program called __git_ps1. It is not in MacPorts. #1 PROMPT="$(__git_ps1 " \[\033[1;32m\] (%s)\[\033[0m\]")\$"$ #2 PROMPT="$(__git_ps1 " (%s)")\$"$ #3 # Get the… >>> More
What are the differences between fish and zsh ?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm a bash user willing to switch to a more friendly and advanced shell. I read a lot of good things about zsh, but I gave a quick test at fish and it seems great too. Both seem very close in term of features, what is your opinion about those two shells ? >>> More
zsh make **/*.cpp **/*.cxx **/*.hpp not result in error

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have "v" aliased to "vim */.cpp */.hpp */.cxx" Problem is, if I'm in a directory without any .cxx files, zsh treats this as an error. Is there anyway to tell zsh to create the absence of */*.cxx files as "" instead of an error? >>> More