Unable to remove a file which has a name like a command argument [duplicate]

I inadvertently created a file called -r in my home directory. Now I cannot get rid of it:

rm -rf
rm: missing operand
Try 'rm --help' for more information.

Other attempts:

rm /-/r
rm: cannot remove ‘/-/r’: No such file or directory

Another one:

rm \-r
rm: missing operand
Try 'rm --help' for more information.

Is there a way to remove this file without deleting the whole directory?

There are many ways of doing this:

1. Use the -- which signifies the end of option flags and the beginning of the list of arguments for many programs (including rm).

   rm -- -r
   

2. Use the full path

   rm /home/you/directory/-r
   

   or, from the same directory (your current directory is referred to as .):

   rm ./-r
   

3. Use find

   find . -name "-r" -exec rm {} \;
   

   or, to get all such files

   find . -name "-*" -exec rm {} \;
   

4. Use an ugly hack. Move everything to a different directory (this will fail for the -r file for the same reason as rm does) and then delete the original directory (which will remove the file) and move everything back again. So, assuming your -r file is in ~/foo:

   $ mkdir ~/bar
   $ for f in *; do mv "$f" ../bar/; done
   mv: invalid option -- 'r'
   Try 'mv --help' for more information.
   $ rm -rf ~/foo
   $ mkdir ~/foo && cd ~/foo
   $ mv ~/bar/* .
   $ rmdir ~/bar
   

In this case you have to use the double-dash (--) in your command arguments.

The purpose of it is to tell to the command that what's follow has not to be taken as an argument to the command but a simple input. In the case of rm, a file or directory name.

So type rm -- -r and you should get rid of this file.

You can also delete such files (starting with a '-') with this command:

rm ./-r

See the rm man page:

To remove a file whose name starts with a '-', for example '-foo', use one of these commands:

rm -- -foo

rm ./-foo