^
Circumflex Accent (Caret)
- Unicode
- U+005E
- Category
- Punctuation
- HTML Entity
- ^
- CSS
- \005E
The circumflex accent (^), usually called a caret in computing, is a small upward wedge raised above the line. ASCII included it as a spacing copy of the accent that sits on letters such as ê and ô. On its own it means "to the power of" in plain text (2^10 = 1024); in chats ^ points to the message above ("this ^"), and ^_^ or ^^ are smiling eyes. The proofreader's caret ‸ (U+2038), which sits on the baseline to mark an insertion, is a different character.
On US and UK keyboards ^ is Shift+6. On the US-International layout and most European layouts it is a dead key: press it, then Space, to get a standalone ^. On a Mac, Option+i is the dead key for putting the circumflex on a letter (ê). On iPhone it is on the #+= page, on Android on the =\< page.
On US and UK keyboards ^ is Shift+6. On the US-International layout and most European layouts it is a dead key: press it, then Space, to get a standalone ^. On a Mac, Option+i is the dead key for putting the circumflex on a letter (ê). On iPhone it is on the #+= page, on Android on the =\< page.
How to Type
- Windows
- Shift+6 (US) · Alt+94
- macOS
- Shift+6
- Linux
- Shift+6 · Ctrl+Shift+U 5e
- HTML
- ^ or ^
In Programming
In C, Java, JavaScript and Python ^ is bitwise XOR, not exponentiation: 2 ^ 3 is 1. Powers are written ** or pow(), while Excel, LaTeX and calculators do use ^. In regular expressions ^ anchors the start of the text (of each line in multiline mode) and negates a character class ([^0-9]). In npm, ^1.2.3 accepts compatible minor and patch updates; in Git, HEAD^ is the parent commit; and Ctrl key combinations are often written with it (^C).
Tags
caret
circumflex
hat symbol
up arrow symbol
power symbol
alt 94
shift 6
keyboard symbol
ascii