Is there a non alphanumeric search engine ?

bitslice · 10 Nov 2006 at 12:52

Hi all,
I came across this bit of batch code, and wanted to know what the "^" bit was doing. (I gather the code does some editing from an output string, and pipes the data into each section; but I've not seen the "^" bit before.)

In search of more info, I found that I can't Google for the "^" character.
I wondered if there a search engine that does actually index non alphanumeric information ....?

( snipped from from http://kb.ultratech-llc.com/Scripts/?File=GetInfo.BAT)
----------------------------------
IF NOT "%~3"=="" (
SET %~3=***UNKNOWN***
FOR /F "SKIP=1 TOKENS=*" %%A IN ('%@CMD% ^| FIND /I "%~2" ^| FINDSTR /I /V "%@EXEMPT%" 2^>^&1') DO SET %~3=%%A
----------------------------------

oh, and I just noticed this today... odd.
http://thesource.ofallevil.com/

v0n · 10 Nov 2006 at 14:27

I don't know about bat files but ^ in most scripting langs is used as position marker and usualy means "beginning of line"

whitecrook · 10 Nov 2006 at 16:54

It's not possible to search google for these kind of things. What you need to do is look at your probelm in a different way. i.e the context in which the special character is used. A search for "batch file special charaters" brings up http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/set.mspx?mfr=true

May be of use.

bitslice · 10 Nov 2006 at 18:12

whitecrook said:
May be of use.

Yep, that's put me on the right track

it seems there are two functions of "^"
1. Bitwise exclusive OR
2. escape char to allow "|" in a string

...so I think it's probably 2, I'll rip the file into smaller bits later and test it out.

Thanks for the loan of your googling skillz

.