GNU Parallel multiple sets of commands

Question

I'd like to use GNU Parallel to run the same command with two different parameters and two different globs. For example, I want the following jobs to run:

mycmd A apples1
mycmd A apples2
mycmd A apples3
mycmd B bananas1
mycmd B bananas2

I can do it with two separate calls, but this defeats the purpose of having my jobs managed by one call to parallel. Is there a way?

parallel mycmd A ::: apples*
parallel mycmd B ::: bananas*

Answer 1

I assume you don't want Bs with your apples. Otherwise it is as simple as:

parallel mycmd ::: [A-Z] ::: [a-z]*

If A can be computed as the first char of the second arg, you can from version 20140722 do this:

parallel mycmd '{= $_=uc(substr($_,0,1)) =}' {} ::: [a-z]*

If you have a list of apples and the corresponding As like this:

A,apples1
A,apples2
B,bananas1
B,bananas2
B,bananas3

then you can split on ,:

cat file | parallel --colsep , mycmd {1} {2}

If this is also not how you have your input, then you need to explain a bit more about how you have your As and apples.