¦
Broken Bar
- Unicode
- U+00A6
- Category
- Punctuation
- HTML Entity
- ¦
- CSS
- \00A6
The broken bar (¦) is a typographic symbol consisting of a vertical line with a gap in the center. It was originally introduced in early computing standards to distinguish the logical "OR" operator from the solid vertical pipe (|), though the two were frequently conflated on vintage keyboards. Today, it mostly serves as a legacy computing character, but occasionally pops up as an aesthetic text divider or in niche technical contexts.
How to Type
- Windows
- Alt+0166
- macOS
- Control+Command+Space then search "broken bar"
- Linux
- Ctrl+Shift+U then a6
- HTML
- ¦ or ¦
In Programming
While largely replaced by the solid pipe (|) for bitwise and logical "OR" operations in modern programming, the broken bar was historically used in older languages like PL/I. Today, developers most often see it utilized by code editors and IDEs as a visual line guide for indentation levels.
Tags
¦
broken bar
broken bar vs pipe
broken pipe symbol
broken vertical bar
brvbar
html broken bar
legacy computing symbol
pipe
punctuation
separator
split
split bar
text divider symbol
unicode 00a6
vertical line gap