> Or for instance, say I have a directory of photos. I want to pick DSC00095...

dima55 · on Sept 28, 2012

Ugh... Did you actually try this?

  dima@fatty:/media/usb/DCIM/100RICOH$ ls R<22399-22402>*
  R0022399.JPG  R0022400.JPG  R0022401.JPG  R0022402.JPG
  dima@fatty:/media/usb/DCIM/100RICOH$ bash -c 'ls R {22392..22402}*'
  ls: cannot access R22399*: No such file or directory
  ls: cannot access R22400*: No such file or directory
  ls: cannot access R22401*: No such file or directory
  ls: cannot access R22402*: No such file or directory

Bash seems to treat these as strings, not like numbers. So in this specific case, I could have manually counted the number of 0s that are required. In some other case where the field width wasn't constant, I wouldn't be able to do that. What if I have files

file.1, file.2, file.3, ..., file.9, file.10, file.11, ...

How do I pick 9-11 in bash? The point is zsh has features that are a real productivity boost. It's certainly arguable whether a switch is worthwhile, but claiming that these features are just "cosmetic" is wrong.

pyre · on Sept 28, 2012

  > How do I pick 9-11 in bash?

Like so:

  file.{9..11}

I think that you mean for the files to be numbered like:

  file.009
  file.010
  file.011

Bash would try to expand:

  file.{9..11}   => file.9   file.10.  file.11
  file.0{9..11}  => file.09  file.010  file.011
  file.00{9..11} => file.009 file.0010 file.0011

Neither would match all files.

dredmorbius · on Sept 29, 2012

    echo file.0{09..11}
    file.009 file.010 file.011

lutusp · on Sept 29, 2012

> Neither would match all files.

True, but this works: file.*{9..11}

It globs on the LHS, and requires the RHS to be literally consistent with the generated index.

I had the same problem with my earlier example, and the above is how I worked it out.

aw3c2 · on Sept 29, 2012

  file.{009..011}

lutusp · on Sept 28, 2012

> Ugh... Did you actually try this?

Your point is correct -- Bash is treating these as strings. I didn't have your file names so I tried a similar example, and I just realized I have to correct my example. I have a directory of graphic files with embedded numbers with leading zeros, for example 001 to 031. I was able to say:

$ ls geographic_harbor_2012_06_02_*{1..31}.JPG

And get all the members. But it's not the same as your example.

aw3c2 · on Sept 28, 2012

How old is your Bash? GNU bash, version 4.2.37(2)-release produces

  $ ls 
  R1004.jpg  R1006.jpg  R1008.jpg  R1010.jpg  R1012.jpg
  R1005.jpg  R1007.jpg  R1009.jpg  R1011.jpg  R1013.jpg
  $ ls R{1005..1009}*
  R1005.jpg  R1006.jpg  R1007.jpg  R1008.jpg  R1009.jpg

dima55 · on Sept 28, 2012

Read the post again. Your case works because you have exactly the right number of digits.

aw3c2 · on Sept 29, 2012

Missed that. Well, Bash does it intuitively however you like:

  $ echo {8..12}
  8 9 10 11 12
  $echo {08..12}
  08 09 10 11 12