Hidden and invisible characters
What they are and how to fix them
What are hidden and invisible characters?
Invisible characters such as zero-width spaces or non-breaking spaces look empty on screen but break matching, sorting, and joins. RxLint finds every cell that contains them so you can clean text and avoid subtle data bugs.
Example data with this issue
| id | label | char_count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Product A | 9 |
| 2 | Product B (has invisible zero-width space) | 10 |
| 3 | Product C | 9 |
Frequently asked questions
Where do invisible characters come from?
They usually come from copy-paste from web pages or word processors, or from external systems that inject special Unicode characters.
Can RxLint remove them?
Yes. RxLint identifies affected cells and supports quick fixes that strip invisible characters so your values compare cleanly.