Inspecting Hidden Unicode Characters

You copied a string from a PDF or a website, pasted it into your code, and suddenly your compiler is throwing a bizarre syntax error. The string looks completely normal. What is going on?

The Invisible Enemy

You have likely fallen victim to invisible Unicode characters! Characters like the "Zero Width Space" (U+200B) or the "Non-Breaking Space" (U+00A0) are entirely invisible to the naked eye in most text editors, but they are absolutely interpreted by compilers and parsers.

Using a Unicode Inspector

A Unicode Inspector breaks down your text string character by character. It reveals the exact Hex code point and name of every single character, allowing you to easily spot and delete hidden, invisible characters that are breaking your code.