[ale] "undeleteable" file

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Wednesday 01 September 2004 11:28 am, Geoffrey wrote:
> Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> > On Wednesday 01 September 2004 10:51 am, Mike Panetta wrote:
> >>Why fall back to a GUI (that may not even be available, think
> >>resuce disk) when ls -b works just fine?
> >
> > Because it doesn't do what I want.  If I have a file named '*' then ls -b
> > will report it as named '*'.  So when I remove it with 'rm *' I end up in
> > trouble.
>
> You just need to be careful.  A file that consists of the single
> character '*' can be created as in:
>
> touch \*
>
> It can also be removed as:
>
> rm \*

Sure, I know that and you know that.  My advice was for someone who either 
doesn't know it, or thinks they may forget it, whether for reasons of 
ignorance, lack of sleep, or distraction.  My solution was intended as one 
that works even if you don't know what you are doing.  Even good sysadmins 
get tired, or distracted, or under time pressure.  Each of us has a set of 
problems that can prevent us from being a good sysadmin.  The trick is to find 
a way to do things so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot when you're 
in a hurry or tired.

Michael