How is a non-breaking space represented in a JavaScript string?
JavascriptJqueryJavascript Problem Overview
This apparently is not working:
X = $td.text();
if (X == ' ') {
X = '';
}
Is there something about a non-breaking space or the ampersand that JavaScript doesn't like?
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
is a HTML entity. When doing .text(), all HTML entities are decoded to their character values.
Instead of comparing using the entity, compare using the actual raw character:
var x = td.text();
if (x == '\xa0') { // Non-breakable space is char 0xa0 (160 dec)
x = '';
}
Or you can also create the character from the character code manually it in its Javascript escaped form:
var x = td.text();
if (x == String.fromCharCode(160)) { // Non-breakable space is char 160
x = '';
}
More information about String.fromCharCode is available here:
> fromCharCode - MDC Doc Center
More information about character codes for different charsets are available here:
Solution 2 - Javascript
Remember that .text() strips out markup, thus I don't believe you're going to find in a non-markup result.
Made in to an answer....
var p = $('<p>').html(' ');
if (p.text() == String.fromCharCode(160) && p.text() == '\xA0')
alert('Character 160');
Shows an alert, as the ASCII equivalent of the markup is returned instead.
Solution 3 - Javascript
That entity is converted to the char it represents when the browser renders the page. JS (jQuery) reads the rendered page, thus it will not encounter such a text sequence. The only way it could encounter such a thing is if you're double encoding entities.
Solution 4 - Javascript
The jQuery docs for text() says
> Due to variations in the HTML parsers > in different browsers, the text > returned may vary in newlines and > other white space.
I'd use $td.html() instead.