What does symbol ^ mean in Batch script?

Question

In this command:

FOR /F %%A IN ('TYPE "%InFile%"^|find /v /c ""')DO SET "Till=%%A" 

what does the ^ mean?

Answer 1

The ^ symbol (also called caret or circumflex) is an escape character in Batch script. When it is used, the next character is interpreted as an ordinary character.

In your script, the output of the TYPE command to be written as the input to the FIND command.
If you don't use the escape character ^ before the |, then the regular meaning of | is a pipe character.

The Documentation says:

To display a pipe (|) or redirection character (< or >) when you are using echo, use a caret character immediately before the pipe or redirection character (for example, ^>, ^<, or ^| ). If you need to use the caret character (^), type two (^^).

Answer 2

The caret '^' character serves two purposes in Windows batch files:

1. line continuations:

~~~

@echo off  dir ^ /ad ^ c:\temp 

~~~~

results in dir /ad c:\temp, which lists only the directories in C:\temp.

2. Escaping reserved shell characters & | ( < > ^.

Use a preceding caret to escape and print the character:

echo this pipe will print ^| but this one won't | echo and this will print one caret ^^