On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 09:55:53AM +0200, Stefano Lattarini wrote: > On 06/27/2013 06:37 AM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek wrote: > > Hi, > > I encountered this in systemd, which recently added a file with > > a dash in the name [1]. > > > I fear this falls in the category "Doctor, it hurts when I do that > -- Don't do that, then" :-) > > To elaborate, on Unix systems, having filenames starting with a > dash has always been very problematic, and generally a terrible > idea. Do you have a very, *very* good reason to have such a file?
One obvious reason: as part of a test suite for just such a problem. > > Basically, various commands like install and rm are called > > without guarding the file list with --, > > > That's because such usage might be unportable; well, it surely was > in the olden days, but I'm not sure whether that is still relevant > on today's system. Still, I'm not comfortable changing the old > assumption and risking regressions for the users of oldish or > proprietary systems. Putting -- before the file list might not be portable, but prefixing filenames starting with a - with ./ seems completely portable. Would that work? - Josh Triplett
