I've noticed the usage of ^& in:
(robocopy c:\dirA c:\dirB *.*) ^& IF %ERRORLEVEL% LSS 8 SET ERRORLEVEL = 0
I am wondering what does it do?
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I say Reinstate Monica
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1Also see [Is typing %^ into cmd.exe a Windows easter egg?](https://superuser.com/questions/917268/is-typing-into-cmd-exe-a-windows-easter-egg) – undo Jan 08 '19 at 09:10
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The ^ symbol is the escape character* in Cmd.exe:
Adding the escape character before a command symbol allows it to be treated as ordinary text.
When piping or redirecting any of these characters you should prefix with the escape character: & \ < > ^ |
However, it has no effect and is actually unnecessary in your command. It appears you want the IF command to be run after the RoboCopy command completes. Therefore you want the & to be parsed as the "command separator" command, which tells Cmd.exe to treat your IF statement as a second command that should be executed after running RoboCopy. As a result, this command is equivalent to the one you're using:
(robocopy c:\dirA c:\dirB *.*) & IF %ERRORLEVEL% LSS 8 SET ERRORLEVEL = 0
*If ^ is the last character in a command, then it is interpreted as the command continuation character.
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I say Reinstate Monica
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1@Biswapriyo That's also true, to use `^` for that purpose it must be the *last* character in the command. – I say Reinstate Monica Jan 07 '19 at 18:23