What s HTML character code 8203

Question

What does the character code  HTML   amp  8203   I found it in one of my jQuery scripts and wondered what it was    Thanks   Edit   Here is the script it was in  it was added to the end  found it in Firebug    lt script src  http   code jquery com jquery-latest js  type  text javascript  gt  lt  script gt   lt script type  text javascript  gt  var  jnyh   jQuery noConflict       jnyh function          jnyh   title-nyh   click function            jnyh   show-hide-nyh   slideDown  slow           function                   if   jnyh this  data  pinned             jnyh   show-hide-nyh   slideUp  slow                 jnyh   title-nyh   click function          jnyh this  parent   toggleClass  title-btm-brdr            jnyh this  toggleClass  chev-up-result          var pin    jnyh this  data  pinned           jnyh this  data  pinned    pin         if pin   jnyh   show-hide-nyh   slideUp  slow                       amp  8203   lt  script gt

User · Answer

ZERO WIDTH SPACE   I ve used it as content for  empty  table cells   No idea what it s doing in a  lt script gt  tag  though

User · Answer

It s the Unicode Character  ZERO WIDTH SPACE   U 200B       this character is intended for line break control  it has no width  but its presence between two characters does not prevent increased letter spacing in justification   As per the given code sample  the entity is entirely superfluous in this context  It must be inserted by some accident  most likely by a buggy editor trying to do smart things with whitespace or highlighting  or an enduser using a keyboard language wherein this character is natively been used  such as Arabic

User · Answer

If you re seeing these in a source be aware that it may be someone attempting to fingerprint text documents to reveal who is leaking information  It also may be an attempt to bypass a spam filter by making the same looking information different on a byte-by-byte level   See my article on mitigating fingerprinting if you re interested in learning more

User · Answer

The ZERO WIDTH SPACE character is inserted when you use jQuery to add elements using DOM manipulation functions like  before   and  after     I ve run into this when adding hidden modal dialog frames at the end of my document and then finding that the ZERO WIDTH SPACE screws up the layout down there  adding unwanted space    The quick fix was to insert it before the footer  not after it   Its hidden anyway   I can t find anything in jQuery that does this   https   github com jquery jquery blob master src manipulation js  So it might be the browser that adds it

User · Answer

It was displaying some weird characters             until I set the charset to UTF-8 in the head of the html file   lt meta http-equiv  content-type  content  text html  charset UTF-8  gt    or for HTML5    lt meta charset  UTF-8  gt    It it is now transparent but still shows in the html when I use the inspector   Removing all the scripts from the page didn t remove it either   I tested it for chrome and IE

User · Answer

I landed here with the same issue  then figured it out on my own  This weird character was appearing with my HTML   The issue is most likely your code editor  I use Espresso and sometimes run into issues like this    To fix it  simply highlight the affected code  then go to the menu and click  convert to numeric entities   You ll see the numeric value of this character appear  simply delete it and  it s gone forever

User · Answer

If you want to search for these invisible characters in your editor and make them visible  you can use a Regular Expression searching for non-ascii characters  Try searching for    x00- x7F   Tested in IntelliJ IDEA

User · Answer

I have these characters show up in scripts where I do not desire them  I noticed because it ruins my HTML CSS visual formatting   it makes a new text box   Pretty sure a buggy editor is adding them    I suspect Komodo Edit for the Mac  in my case

[html] What's HTML character code 8203?

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