\u200b (Zero width space) characters in my JS code. Where did they come from?
Here's a stab in the dark.
My bet would be on Google Chrome Inspector. Searching through the Chromium source, I spotted the following block of code
if (hasText)
attrSpanElement.appendChild(document.createTextNode("=\u200B\""));
if (linkify && (name === "src" || name === "href")) {
var rewrittenHref = WebInspector.resourceURLForRelatedNode(node, value);
value = value.replace(/([\/;:\)\]\}])/g, "$1\u200B");
attrSpanElement.appendChild(linkify(rewrittenHref, value, "webkit-html-attribute-value", node.nodeName().toLowerCase() === "a"));
} else {
value = value.replace(/([\/;:\)\]\}])/g, "$1\u200B");
var attrValueElement = attrSpanElement.createChild("span", "webkit-html-attribute-value");
attrValueElement.textContent = value;
}
It's quite possible that I'm simply barking up the wrong tree here, but it looks like zero-width spaces were being inserted (to handle soft text wrapping?) during the display of attributes. Perhaps the "Copy as HTML" function had not properly removed them?
Update
After fiddling with the Chrome element inspector, I'm almost convinced that's where your stray \u200b came from. Notice how the line can wrap not only at visible space but also after = or chars matched by /([\/;:\)\]\}])/ thanks to the inserted zero-width space.
Unfortunately, I am unable to replicate your problem where they inadvertently get included into your clipboard (I used Chrome 13.0.782.112 on Win XP).
It would certainly be worth submitting a bug report should your be able to reproduce the behaviour.
As Mr Shawn Chin has addressed it already. I just happened to replicate the issue while I was copy pasting jquery code from a webpage.
When it happened: Copying text from Google Chrome Version 41.0.2272.118 m ( not tested with other browsers ) to Dreamweaver code window. This copied unwanted characters along the code like this happening here
you copied text from a webpage as
$('.btn-pageMenu').css('display','block');
behind the scenes, this is what makes that line
<code><span class="pun">​</span><span class="pln">$</span><span class="pun">(</span><span class="str">'.btn-pageMenu'</span><span class="pun">).</span><span class="pln">css</span><span class="pun">(</span><span class="str">'display'</span><span class="pun">​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​,</span><span class="str">'block'</span><span class="pun">);​​​​​​</span></code>
Copied to an advanced editor like those you mentioned or Dreamweaver gives errors in browser, probably failing of javascript code too
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL
Solution: When it happens, embrace the worth of notepad until this gets fixed by the big guys. It is more related to the editor then the browsers.
This happened to me when I copied source code from another site into my editor.
If your using visual studio code or Atom editor, this will highlight those pesky characters zero-width space \u200b) etc.
- VSCode: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=nhoizey.gremlins
- Atom editor: https://atom.io/packages/highlight-bad-chars
- Sublime Text: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Gremlins