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IDENTICAL unordered lists, YET the displays are different.

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 14 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

Mitch R
Mitch R
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Latest Firefox This HTML sequence contains two IDENTICAL unordered lists, YET the displays are different. As you can see, the 1st display list is double spaced and the 2nd display list is single spaced. Why? 

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head><meta charset="utf-8"></head>
<body>

​<ul>
<li>The Federal.</li>
​<li>The Federal.</li>
​<li>The Federal.</li>
</ul>

---------------------

<ul>
<li>The Federal.</li>
<li>The Federal.</li>
<li>The Federal.</li>
</ul>

</body>
</html>

Displays: 

   The Federal.
   ​
   The Federal.
   ​
   The Federal.

   The Federal.
   The Federal.
   The Federal.
Latest Firefox This HTML sequence contains two IDENTICAL unordered lists, YET the displays are different. As you can see, the 1st display list is double spaced and the 2nd display list is single spaced. Why? <pre><nowiki> <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head><meta charset="utf-8"></head> <body> ​<ul> <li>The Federal.</li> ​<li>The Federal.</li> ​<li>The Federal.</li> </ul> --------------------- <ul> <li>The Federal.</li> <li>The Federal.</li> <li>The Federal.</li> </ul> </body> </html> </nowiki></pre><br> Displays: The Federal. ​ The Federal. ​ The Federal. --------------------- The Federal. The Federal. The Federal.

Modified by cor-el

Chosen solution

Those hidden spaces are present as red dots in the screenshot, so you can see that they are right before the <li> tags. I have no idea how/why they ended up in the first UL container as you would normally have to do some effort to get such Unicode characters in a document unless your editor has support. This is the first time I got across such special spaces. You can easily remove them by using cursor left starting with the LI tag until you notice that the cursor doesn't move because it passed the space and press the Delete key or use cursor right and backspace.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (6)

Mitch R
Mitch R Question owner
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The source HTML I provided was interpreted: I meant to display the literal text HTML, so here's the HTML, but commented out so it would not be interpreted.

cor-el
cor-el
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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If you inspect the code closely then you will notice that there are weird &amp#200b; zero-width-space characters present in your code that are rendered on a separate line. 

&#0a;
&#200b;
&#3c;&#75;&#6c;&#3e;&#0a;
&#3c;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#54;&#68;&#65;&#20;
&#46;&#65;&#64;&#65;&#72;&#61;&#6c;&#2e;
&#3c;&#2f;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#0a;
&#200b;
&#3c;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#54;&#68;&#65;&#20;
&#46;&#65;&#64;&#65;&#72;&#61;&#6c;&#2e;
&#3c;&#2f;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#0a;
&#200b;
&#3c;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#54;&#68;&#65;&#20;
&#46;&#65;&#64;&#65;&#72;&#61;&#6c;&#2e;
&#3c;&#2f;&#6c;&#69;&#3e;&#0a;
&#3c;&#2f;&#75;&#6c;&#3e;

Modified by cor-el

Mitch R
Mitch R Question owner
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Thank you for your response. OK, so the mystery BEGINS. Where did the zero-width-space get inserted? And why only in the 1st sequence and not the 2nd?

Is there a work-around?

BTW, how did you inspect the code to reveal the character encoding?

cor-el
cor-el
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Chosen Solution

Those hidden spaces are present as red dots in the screenshot, so you can see that they are right before the <li> tags. I have no idea how/why they ended up in the first UL container as you would normally have to do some effort to get such Unicode characters in a document unless your editor has support. This is the first time I got across such special spaces. You can easily remove them by using cursor left starting with the LI tag until you notice that the cursor doesn't move because it passed the space and press the Delete key or use cursor right and backspace.

Mitch R
Mitch R Question owner
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Thank you very much for you help. I finally understand what happened, but not why. Following the removal technique you described, I have a way to recognize the problem and work around it. Thanks again.

cor-el
cor-el
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You're welcome