You can use the command line to process your hostlist strings by using the following command:
hostlist <method> <args>...
Here is a list of all of the methods available:
-h, --help- Display this message.
-q, --quiet- Quiet output (exit non-zero if empty hostlist)
-d, --delimiters- Set output delimiter (default = ",")
-c, --count- Print the number of hosts
-s, --size- Output at most N hosts (-N for last N hosts)
-e, --expand- Expand a compressed hostlist
-a, --abbreviate- Compress an expanded hostlist
-t, --tighten- Return a hostlist string
-m, --minus- Subtract all HOSTLIST args from first HOSTLIST
-i, --intersection- Intersection of all HOSTLIST args
-x, --exclude- Exclude all HOSTLIST args from first HOSTLIST
-X, --xor- Symmetric difference of all HOSTLIST args
-u, --union- Union of all HOSTLIST arguments
-n, --nth- Output the host at index N
-R, --remove- Remove all occurences of NODE from HOSTLIST
-S, --sort- Return sorted HOSTLIST
-F, --find- Output position of HOST in result HOSTLIST
For example, to execute the expand function displayed above, users can run the following:
hostlist -e node[1-4]
This will return node1,node2,node3,node4.