Question

I have a directory named “–table” that i’d like to remove. I tried rmdir –table, rmdir –table and still it wouldnt work. What is the correct method ?..

Answer 1

rmdir -- --table

The -- in the middle signals the end of options.

The rm man page states

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

          rm -- -foo

          rm ./-foo

Although it does not state it, the double-hyphen is used by many unix commands (e.g. rmdir) to separate options from the rest of the arguments.