How do I deal with a filename that starts with the hyphen (-) character?

Question

Somehow, at some point, I accidentally created a file in my home directory named \'-s\'. It is about 500 kb and I have no idea if it contains important data or not. I cannot

Answer 1

You can get rid of it with:

rm ./-s

The rm command (at least under Ubuntu 10.04) even tells you such:

pax@pax-desktop:~$ rm -w
rm: invalid option -- 'w'
Try `rm ./-w' to remove the file `-w'.
Try `rm --help' for more information.

The reason that works is because rm doesn't think it's an option (since it doesn't start with -) but it's still referring to the specific file in the current directory.