IBM developerWorks has an article that goes over many of the symbols you’ll encounter at a Unix/Linux/Mac OS X/Cygwin command line:
You’ve learned a few of the basic commands to help you maneuver through a directory structure, create and modify files, see what processes are running, and maybe even administer users and the system. That’s great, but you want to understand what the UNIXรยฎ administrators next to you are typing. It looks like a lot of commands interspersed with strange symbols. Learn what |, >, >>, <, <<, [[ and ]], and many more symbols mean in UNIX and Linuxรยฎ as well as how to get the most out of operators such as &&, ||, <, <=, and !=.
Speaking UNIX: !$#@*%: Learn even more command-line tricks and operators [via LinuxDevices.com]
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