entering a vertical straight line in the terminal

[wt-pm66]

I am trying to enter a command into the terminal, and I'm unsure about a straight line in the command. I don't know if it is actually supposed to be entered or if it's there to show a break or something. It is the line between "zero" and "nc" in the following. host-a$ cat /dev/zero | nc -l -p 12345 I know this is a complete noob question, so thanks for the help.

[lisati]

The | symbol is sometimes known as a "pipe" symbol. In the example you give, it's part of the command sequence. It roughly translates to "Take the output from one command and use it as input to the next command."

[Lars Noodén]

The straight line is called a pipe. It takes output from the first program and uses it as input for the second. However, the example using cat you have is a little strange.

ls /usr/bin
ls /usr/bin | less

ls /usr/bin/*grep* 
ls /usr/bin/*grep* | wc -l

You can hook as many programs together in that way as you want.

apt-cache search xml 
apt-cache search xml | sort 
apt-cache search xml | sort | less

You can also use < and > and >> to redirect IO.

[coldraven]

Also on my laptop the only way to get the "pipe" is with alt gr + |
Alt gr is the key to the right of the spacebar.
If I don't use it then I get ` or ¬

[oldos2er]

If you're using a US keyboard, Shift-\ should give you a pipe.