# What do you call this | character? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 14, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426 "2011-06-14T14:24:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/1 "2011-06-14T14:24:18Z")
|, or shifted ? ---
**Author:** ![TheBori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@TheBori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBori)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/2 "2011-06-14T14:26:04Z")
It’s a “pipe”. Used in coding quite a bit. Awk Grep Pipe. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/3 "2011-06-14T14:26:19Z")
pipe One of the redirection operators from DOS (and probably earlier) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/4 "2011-06-14T14:33:06Z")
It’s a pipe, much beloved of programmer types. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/5 "2011-06-14T14:39:17Z")
Pipe. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/6 "2011-06-14T14:43:07Z")
Rio: Duran Duran. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/7 "2011-06-14T15:00:05Z")
It’s now used as an “OR” by Google in searches. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/8 "2011-06-14T15:00:12Z")
The Unicode codepoint names it [VERTICAL LINE](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/7c/index.htm). There’s also a separate encoding for [BROKEN BAR](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/a6/index.htm) which originally appeared in EBCDIC and found its way into Unicode via ISO-8859-1. Character set archeology is fun. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/9 "2011-06-14T15:01:00Z")
Pipe is what I thought. But I’ve only heard one person call it that, and when I have, people have given me confused looks. And I’m a programmer type who hangs out with programmer types. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/10 "2011-06-14T15:02:23Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s now used as an “OR” by Google in searches. The use of | as a boolean OR predates Google by about a billion years. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/11 "2011-06-14T15:02:59Z")
Pipe, but just about everywhere you can substitute ! ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/12 "2011-06-14T15:08:21Z")
With netbooks and their smaller keyboards, the character is called a pipette. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/13 "2011-06-14T15:28:59Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > With netbooks and their smaller keyboards, the character is called a pipette. So on super computers is it called a bong? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/14 "2011-06-14T15:49:22Z")
So as not to get all confused, check out: [http://admonkey.org/2008/07/25/british-airways-open-skies-ce-nest-pas-une-publicite/](http://admonkey.org/2008/07/25/british-airways-open-skies-ce-nest-pas-une-publicite/) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/15 "2011-06-14T15:50:49Z")
Pong tennis paddle. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/16 "2011-06-14T16:04:39Z")
| Ceci n’est pas une pipe ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/17 "2011-06-14T16:06:55Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > | > > Ceci n’est pas une pipe Touché! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/18 "2011-06-14T16:37:35Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > The use of | as a boolean OR predates Google by about a billion years. Yeah, but people use Google now. DOS, not so much. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/19 "2011-06-14T16:38:51Z")
I call it “Fred”. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426/20 "2011-06-14T16:42:08Z")
A very small obstacle course. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-this-character/585426.md?page=2)