Why is  appearing in my HTML?

Html Problem Overview

I see this character in Firebug .

I don't know why this is happening, there's no such character in my code. For Firefox it's OK, but in IE everything breaks. I can't even search for this character in Google.

I saved my file with utf-8 encoding without bom.

enter image description here

Html Solutions

Solution 1 - Html

The character in question is the Unicode Character 'ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE' (U+FEFF). It may be that you copied it into your code via a copy/paste without realizing it. The fact that it's not visible makes it hard to tell if you're using an editor that displays actual unicode characters.

One option is to open the file in a very basic text editor that doesn't understand unicode, or one that understands it but has the ability to display any non-ascii characters using their actual codes.

Once you locate it, you can delete the small block of text around it and retype that text manually.

Solution 2 - Html

Just use notepad ++ with encoding UTF-8 without BOM.

Solution 3 - Html

yeah, its so simple to fix that, just open that file by notepad++ and step follow --> Encoding\ encoding UTF-8 without BOM. then save that. It work for me as well!

Solution 4 - Html

Try:

<?php 
// Tell me the root folder path.
// You can also try this one
// $HOME = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"];
// Or this
// dirname(__FILE__)
$HOME = dirname(__FILE__);

// Is this a Windows host ? If it is, change this line to $WIN = 1;
$WIN = 0;

// That's all I need
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>UTF8 BOM FINDER and REMOVER</title>
<style>
body { font-size: 10px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background: #FFF; color: #000; }
.FOUND { color: #F30; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$BOMBED = array();
RecursiveFolder($HOME);
echo '<h2>These files had UTF8 BOM, but i cleaned them:</h2><p class="FOUND">';
foreach ($BOMBED as $utf) { echo $utf ."<br />\n"; }
echo '</p>';

// Recursive finder
function RecursiveFolder($sHOME) {
  global $BOMBED, $WIN;
  
  $win32 = ($WIN == 1) ? "\\" : "/";
  
  $folder = dir($sHOME);
  
  $foundfolders = array();
  while ($file = $folder->read()) {
    if($file != "." and $file != "..") {
      if(filetype($sHOME . $win32 . $file) == "dir"){
        $foundfolders[count($foundfolders)] = $sHOME . $win32 . $file;
      } else {
        $content = file_get_contents($sHOME . $win32 . $file);
        $BOM = SearchBOM($content);
        if ($BOM) {
          $BOMBED[count($BOMBED)] = $sHOME . $win32 . $file;
          
          // Remove first three chars from the file
          $content = substr($content,3);
          // Write to file 
          file_put_contents($sHOME . $win32 . $file, $content);
        }
      }
    }
  }
  $folder->close();
  
  if(count($foundfolders) > 0) {
    foreach ($foundfolders as $folder) {
      RecursiveFolder($folder, $win32);
    }
  }
}

// Searching for BOM in files
function SearchBOM($string) { 
    if(substr($string,0,3) == pack("CCC",0xef,0xbb,0xbf)) return true;
    return false; 
}
?>
</body>
</html>

copy this code to php file upload to root and run it.

for more about this: http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=98700.0

Solution 5 - Html

"I don't know why this is happening"

Well I have just run into a possible cause:-) Your HTML page is being assembled from separate files. Perhaps you have files which only contain the body or banner portion of your final page. Those files contain a BOM (0xFEFF) marker. Then as part of the merge process you are running HTML tidy or xmllint over the final merged HTML file.

That will cause it!

Solution 6 - Html

If you are using Notepad++, "Menu" >> "Encoding" >> "Convert to UTF-8" your "include" files.

Solution 7 - Html

If you have a lot of files to review, you can use this tool: https://www.mannaz.at/codebase/utf-byte-order-mark-bom-remover/

Credits to Maurice

It help me to clean a system, with MVC in CakePhp, as i work in Linux, Windows, with different tools.. in some files my design was break.. so after checkin in Chrome with debug tool find the error

Solution 8 - Html

Before clear space (trim)

Then replace with RegEx .replace("/\xEF\xBB\xBF/", "")

I'm working on Javascript, I did with JavaScript.

Solution 9 - Html

An old stupid trick that works in this case... paste code from your editor to ms notepad, then viceversa, and evil character will disappears ! I take inspiration from wyisyg/msword copypaste problem. Notepad++ utf-8 w/out BOM works as well.

Solution 10 - Html

Here's my 2 cents: I had the same problem and I tried using Notepad++ to convert to UTF-8 no BOM, and also the old "copy to MS notepad then back again" trick, all to no avail. My problem was solved by making sure all files (and 'included' files) were the same file system; I had some files that were Windows format and some that had been copied off a remote Linux server, so were in UNIX format.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	mehdi	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Html	RHSeeger	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Html	shonhloi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Html	user1386086	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Html	Osama Elhmahmy	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Html	ferg	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Html	JohnA10	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Html	Henry Gabriel González Montejo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Html	Oğuzhan Sari	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Html	Marcello	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Html	kurdtpage	View Answer on Stackoverflow