What | means, its Unix pipe history, and how to type it — click to copy.
Click to copy · U+007C
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Character | | |
| Unicode code point | U+007C |
| Unicode name | VERTICAL LINE |
| Unicode block | Basic Latin (standard ASCII) |
| Category | Special character |
| Common name | Pipe |
| has been part of the ASCII standard since the 1960s, originally just a plain divider character. Its most famous meaning comes from computing: in 1973, Doug McIlroy at Bell Labs introduced the "pipe" operator for the Unix shell, letting command1 | command2 feed the output of one program directly into the input of another. That simple idea — small programs chained together instead of one giant program doing everything — became one of the most influential concepts in software design, and it's why | still carries the nickname "pipe" decades later, central to shell scripting and command-line tools across every modern operating system.
Outside computing, | does double duty as math notation — wrapping a number to mean absolute value (|-5| = 5), separating a condition in set-builder notation ({x | x > 0}), and denoting divisibility (a | b, "a divides b") — and as a plain visual divider in menus, taglines, and lists (Name | Title | Location).
| Platform | Works? |
|---|---|
| Instagram bio / caption | Yes — common as a divider |
| Discord | Yes |
| TikTok display name | Yes |
| Yes | |
| Roblox / PlayStation / Xbox username | No — alphanumeric only |
| Method | Input |
|---|---|
| Keyboard (Windows & Mac, US layout) | Shift+\ |
| Windows Alt code | Alt+124 |
| HTML entity | No named entity — use | if needed (it's not a reserved HTML character) |
| CSS content | content: "\007C" |
| is one of dozens of vertical line, bar, and rule variants in the full vertical line symbols library.
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It depends on context. In everyday writing, | is a simple divider between items (Name | Title | Location). In math, |x| means absolute value and {x | x > 0} reads "the set of x such that x is greater than 0." In computing, | is the Unix "pipe" operator that feeds one command's output into another.
Doug McIlroy introduced the pipe operator at Bell Labs in 1973 for the Unix shell. Writing command1 | command2 sends the output of the first command straight into the second, like water through a pipe — one of the most influential ideas in computing, still central to shell scripting and command-line tools today.
It's a standard keyboard key — Shift+Backslash (\) on a US layout, on both Windows and Mac, usually just above or below the Enter/Return key. No Alt code is required, though Alt+124 also works on Windows.