I’m guessing that bash got the {1..9} expansion from the Z Shell, which has had it for quite a while. Here’s some info from the zshexpn(1) manpage:

An expression of the form `{n1..n2}’, where n1 and n2 are integers, is expanded to every number between n1 and n2 inclusive. If either number begins with a zero, all the resulting numbers will be padded with leading zeroes to that minimum width. If the numbers are in decreasing order the resulting sequence will also be in decreasing order.

If a brace expression matches none of the above forms, it is left unchanged, unless the BRACE_CCL option is set. In that case, it is expanded to a sorted list of the individual characters between the braces, in the manner of a search set. `-’ is treated specially as in a search set, but `^’ or `!’ as the first character is treated normally.

Jerry

> With Bash (this tip does not work with Csh for exemple), instead of using {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} you can simply type {1..9}.

This is correct, but it only works for Bash 3.0 and above.

Maximd,
Interesting..your shortcut didn’t work in my Bash shell on my MacBook:
MACLT:~/Documents$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
MACLT:~/Documents$ echo {1,9}{a,b,c}
1a 1b 1c 9a 9b 9c
MACLT:~/Documents$ echo {1..9}
{1..9}

scott

With Bash (this tip does not work with Csh for exemple), instead of using {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} you can simply type {1..9}.

Give it a try in a Bash shell with:

echo {1..9}