Re: [Wlug] deleting a file named "--exclude"

No. Unix shells expands everything on the command line before running the program. So "rm *exclude" and "rm ??exclude" expand to "rm --exclude". The program cannot tell that the "--exclude" was expanded from wildcard values. Quoting Jim Dibb <jimdibb@gmail.com>:

Doesn't rm ??exclude, or rm *exclude work, if you only have the one file with exclude in it?