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A vertical bar joining one command's output to the next command's input.
Also known as: Pipe operator
Between two commands, the vertical bar connects the first one's output stream directly to the second one's input, so that data flows through a chain without touching a file.
POSIX defines the vertical bar as the pipe operator: it connects the standard output of the command on its left to the standard input of the command on its right.
Contexts: Software
Introduced in Unix in 1973 and now the defining idiom of shell composition: many small programs chained rather than one large one.
Contexts: Software
A single upright stroke of even weight, standing the full height of a line of text with no head or foot.
The same character. The vertical bar is the typographic mark; the pipe operator is what a shell does with it.
Both are used in software contexts.