What does the hat symbol signify in a script

[Hunki]

What does the hat "^" symbol signify in a script.

Thanks,

Hunki

[Rodney Hills]

In olden times it was used the same as the pipe symbol (|). But it's been deprecated.

Example-
ls -l ^ more

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Patrick Wallek]

It depends on its usage.

If it is part of a awk, sed or grep statement (ie. a regular expression) then it is likely used to signify the beginning of a line.

For example, if you were to do:

grep "^user1:" /etc/passwd

It would look for user1: at the beginning of the line and not anywhere else in the line.

[Hunki]

Thanks Pat!!