LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] A weird character that actually doesnt exist but visible when you do a less or vi the

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A weird character that actually doesnt exist but visible when you do a less or vi the

Hi guys,

So the thing arrived when i created an XML file out of an XLS, the column those had a trailing space (*by mistake left an space there) are replaced by a character like "|" (appears in bold) and does looked like a pipe'|' .

Code:

The file has email addresses like:

<EMAILADDR>ABC@XYZ.COM</EMAIL>

and the spaces entry is like:

<EMAILADDR>ABC@XYZ.COM| </EMAIL>

when i tried search for a trailing space in the file i came across this issue as if egrep didnt showed up anything:

Code:

egrep -i 'COM[ \t]|NET[ \t]|ORG[ \t]|IN[ \t]' filename

i tried searching for a pipe character but again nothing!!
when i copied that particular line and pasted in UI editor it was just an space and nothing else there!! but visible on console :P some ghost character!!! :P
Anyone have any idea what was this behavior like and how to get rid of it??

Place the cursor on it in vim command mode and type ga to see what it is (shown at bottom of vi window).

Just figured it out ""it seeems the xls to xml conversion have translated some color code or hyperlink to that one:

Code:

grep --color='auto' -P -n "[\x80-\xFF]" <XML-Name>

does it all for me.

Thanks @astrogeek

Note: hex viewer is your friend (Midnight Command has a built-in: mcview <filename>; then F4)

Thats something new, will try that. Thanks @NevemTeve