That Crazy Caret

[M. J. Shannon, Jr.]

The caret (`^') is a synonym for the vertical bar (`|'), and was the
pipe metacharacter in earlier shells.  Why, you ask?  Well, many
keyboards in those days didn't require the typist to shift to get to
the `^', and that made it more convenient to use the caret than the
vertical bar.  I don't know about the System V shell, but the UNIX
Eight Edition shell treats `^' as a non-special character.
-- 
	Marty Shannon
UUCP:	{alice,rabbit,research}!mjs
Phone:	201-582-3199