A small number of characters are reserved for use in Pipeline Runner scripts. These are:
# [ @ or ; as the first character in any line
•The hash is a reserved character because it indicates a Directive, and must be followed by a valid directive.
•The square bracket is a reserved character because it indicates the start of the definition of a Script Section, and must be followed by the section name and a closing square bracket
•The @ sign is a reserved character because it indicates the start of a script line that has been split into multiple lines and must be followed by a semi-colon at the end of the last line in the split.
•The semicolon is a reserved character because it indicates a comment. A line starting with a semicolon will be ignored when the script in which it is used is run
; as the last character in any line
•The semicolon is a reserved character at the end of a line because it indicates the end of a set of split lines.
: as the command separator
•The colon follows any command. It indicates the end of a command definition and is always followed by the command parameters.
| or $ or % or %% anywhere in any command line
•The pipe character is used as a separator in situations where separations are necessary, for example to delimit multiple parameters where an alternative delimiter is already in use. For example, a command might need to have parameters separated by commas, and one of the parameters may consist of multiple values which would have to be separated by pipe characters because the other delimiting characters are already in use or are inappropriate.
•The dollar character is used as the Verbatim String Literal character when used in Escaped Strings
•The percent character is used in opening and closing pairs to indicate a token that should be replaced with a calculated or retrieved variable value. For this reason a single or double percent sign could change the meaning of the command or parameter concerned, so its use is reserved.
In some cases it may still be possible to use one of the reserved characters. For example, the square bracket and semicolon can be used as long as they are not the first character in any line. It may be possible to use other characters if the command parameter is surrounded in quotation marks, so for example if you define a path and file name surrounded by quotation marks it will be perfectly possible and indeed necessary to use a colon as a drive separator.
Alternative Options
You can always use Special Character Constant Expressions to define an otherwise reserved character. For example %%dollar%% would be replaced with a dollar sign and %%pipe%% would be replaced with the pipe character without adversely affecting the script.
It may also possible to use a Variable to define a value that contains a reserved character, since these are substituted using Template Parsing after the commands themselves have been parsed.
Note: The space and comma characters are not strictly reserved, but are used extensively to separate parameters. In many cases for this to work you will need to surround the parameter or text with quotation marks. See the individual Commands for information about the individual syntax requirements.
See Also: Reserved Strings Special Character Constant Expressions Script Sections Commands Variables Constant Expressions Conditions Escaped Strings