UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am using the following nested loop

Code:

for i in {1..3}
do
	for y in {1..3}
	do
		if [ -f P0${i}R${y}.fas ];
		then
			echo P0${i}R${y}.fas
			mv P0${i}R${y}.fas P${i}R${y}.fas
			read -t 5
		fi
	done
done

I was wondering if I can use a character such as * or ? instead of my second variable y. I tried R[123] in a single loop but that did not work
Thus, I will not need the inner loop to accomplish this task
Thanks!

Try something like:

Code:

for i in P0{1..3}R{1..3}.fas
do	if [ -f "$i" ]
	then	echo "$i"
		mv "$i" "P${i##??}"
		read -t 5
	fi
done

Don
Thanks! Would you mind explaining me what ##?? means?
I get the same output with #??, so I am not quite sure about the differences between the two
I appreciate it

The shell variable expansion ${var#pat} removes the shortest string from the start of the expansion of the variable var that matches the filename matching pattern specified by pat.

The shell variable expansion ${var##pat} removes the longest string from the start of the expansion of the variable var that matches the filename matching pattern specified by pat.

In both cases above, if there is no match for pat, var is expanded without modification.

With the pattern ??, the shortest string and the longest string are identical (and with filenames like P0xRy.fas, any of the following:

Code:

P${var#??}
P${var##??}
P${var#P0}
P${var##P0}

would expand to PxRy.fas.