Tip: How to Delete Files with Special Characters

Rai    Linux, Tips     command, dash, delete, Linux, rm, special character, tip

How to delete files with dash or any special character?

Have you tried to delete a who-knows-where-it-came-from file which has a special character like preceded with dash or question mark? I bet that when you tried to delete it, you got something like this:

[root@rai01 home]# rm -ucantdeleteme
rm: invalid option — u
Try `rm ./-ucantdeleteme’ to remove the file `-ucantdeleteme’.
Try `rm –help’ for more information.

Now what?

The reason behind this is because the rm command is treating the dash (-) as an additional parameter or option. So since -ucantdeleteme is not a valid option for rm to use, but a file, the rm command returns an error.

One trick that I always use to get around this is to tell the rm that you are referring to something that is a file. You can do this by adding ./ before the filename, like so:

[root@rai01 home]# rm ./-ucantdeleteme
rm: remove regular empty file `./-ucantdeleteme’? y

Voila! You can now delete that pesky file. You can also do this to files with ? in their filenames.

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