Re: [Help-bash] Undocumented caret logical operator?

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, May 02, 2018 at 01:51:42PM -0400, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> The experiments show that it is not acting as an
> "undocumented synonym for |" (bashref re: SVR4.2's Bourne shell)

> echo -n expect TRUE:
> true ^ false && echo TRUE || echo FALSE

Outside of legacy Bourne shells, the ^ is just a character with no
special meaning, like x or % or 8.  Here (above), you're passing two
extra arguments to the "true" command, which simply ignores them.

Here (below), you're passing two extra arguments to "false", which
also ignores them.

> echo -n expect FALSE:
> false ^ true && echo TRUE || echo FALSE

> echo -n expect FALSE:
> false ^ false && echo TRUE || echo FALSE

It's also a really bad idea to chain && and || in the same command
like this.  It is NOT a synonym for "if ... then ... else ... fi",
as I explain at <https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls#pf22>.