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Aucbvax.4484 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Fri Oct 16 00:03:47 1981 '^' as alternate pipe symbol >From decvax!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Thu Oct 15 23:45:29 1981 One very good reason NOT to delete the alternate pipe symbol '^' from the Bourne shell is that many people like it and use it, because it is "lowercase" on many keyboards while '|' usually is shifted. If I was designing the language from scratch, I would not put too much weight on this -- there are only so many lowercase symbols, and you have to use uppercase sometimes -- but de-implementing a feature that is really in use is another matter.

If it had been deleted at the abandonment of the ASR33, ok. Even deleting it at Bourne-shell time might have been ok. Too late now, at least without a compelling reason.

Henry Spencer

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