The pattern expansion characters { } are similar to *, ? and [ ] wildcards but they expand non-existent strings (not just filenames) as well. { } works in csh, tcsh, zsh and bash but not in sh and ksh. { } expansion (a facility performed by the bash shell) {a,e,i,o,u} create 5 strings consisting of 1 different vowel each. {,a} create 2 strings, the first is null the 2nd is 'a' {,,,,} [4 commas] create 5 strings that are null Examples: $ # What do these commands with braces produce as output? $ # What error message do you get with ls or echo if there is no match? $ mv file{1,2}.txt $ echo mv file{1,2}.txt $ cp file{,.old} $ cat ~/Assign{ment1,ment2,ment3}/Results{1,2,3}.rk compare: $ vi file[a-g][a-g] $ vi file{aa,bb,cc,dd,ee,ff,gg} $ echo {bill,bob,brian,beth,barb}@ned.highline.eduQuestions? Robert Katz: rkatz@ned.highline.edu