What's HTML character code 8203?

Kyle picture Kyle · Jun 4, 2010 · Viewed 119.8k times · Source

What does the character code (HTML) ​? 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)

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
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");      
    });
});​&#8203;
</script>

Answer

BalusC picture BalusC · Jun 4, 2010

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.