Hello, @petyo-vodenicharov, @peterjones and All,

In addition, to the two valuable Peter’s posts, above, here is my contribution to these strange characters ;-))

Here is, below, a list of all the Unicode characters, with the General category property = Cf ( Format Character ), which, both, have a code value < FFFF and do NOT, strictly, depend on a specific language !

•--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | Code | Abbr. | Complete Name | Cat. | >Car< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | 00AD | SHY | SOFT HYPHEN | Cf | >­< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | 200B | ZWSP | ZERO WIDTH SPACE | Cf | >​< | | 200C | ZWNJ | ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER | Cf | >‌< | | 200D | ZWJ | ZERO WIDTH JOINER | Cf | >‍< | | 200E | LRM | LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK | Cf | >‎< | | 200F | RLM | RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK | Cf | >‏< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | 202A | LRE | LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDING | Cf | >‪< | | 202B | RLE | RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING | Cf | >‫< | | 202C | PDF | POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING | Cf | >‬< | | 202D | LRO | LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE | Cf | >‭< | | 202E | RLO | RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE | Cf | >‮| •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | 2060 | WJ | WORD JOINER | Cf | >⁠< | | 2061 | ƒ() | FUNCTION APPLICATION | Cf | >⁡< | | 2062 | × | INVISIBLE TIMES | Cf | >⁢< | | 2063 | , | INVISIBLE SEPARATOR | Cf | >⁣< | | 2064 | + | INVISIBLE PLUS | Cf | >⁤< | | 2066 | LRI | LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATE | Cf | >⁦< | | 2067 | RLI | RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATE | Cf | >⁧< | | 2068 | FSI | FIRST STRONG ISOLATE | Cf | >⁨< | | 2069 | PDI | POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE | Cf | >⁩< | | 206A | ISS | INHIBIT SYMMETRIC SWAPPING | Cf | >< | | 206B | ASS | ACTIVATE SYMMETRIC SWAPPING | Cf | >< | | 206C | IAFS | INHIBIT ARABIC FORM SHAPING | Cf | >< | | 206D | AAFS | ACTIVATE ARABIC FORM SHAPING | Cf | >< | | 206E | NADS | NATIONAL DIGIT SHAPES | Cf | >< | | 206F | NODS | NOMINAL DIGIT SHAPES | Cf | >< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | FEFF | ZWNBSP | ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE | Cf | >< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------• | FFF9 | IAA | INTERLINEAR ANNOTATION ANCHOR | Cf | >< | | FFFA | IAS | INTERLINEAR ANNOTATION SEPARATOR | Cf | >< | | FFFB | IAT | INTERLINEAR ANNOTATION TERMINATOR | Cf | >< | •--------•--------•-------------------------------------------•------•---------•

Now, depending of the current font, that is used in N++, the glyph of these characters may :

Be invisible ( A true Zero Width character )

Display a square or a thin rectangular box ( Character not handled by current font )

Display a specific character ( case of the Soft Hyphen )

Of course, with the simple regular expression \x{####}, you can match the character of Unicode value = ####. But, it would be better to find out a regex to match any of these format characters !

I noticed that the Posix character class [[:cntrl:]] matches most of these characters :

The 4 characters, from \x{200C} to \x{200F}

The 5 characters, from \x{202A} to \x{202E}

The 6 characters, from \x{206A} to \x{206F}

The character \x{FEFF}

The 3 characters, from \x{FFF9} to \x{FFFB}

Unfortunately, the [[:cntrl:]] regex, also matches the Control characters :

The 32 C0 characters, from \x{0000} to \x{001F}

The 32 C1 characters, from \x{0080} to \x{009F}

Moreover, the [[:cntrl:]] regex misses some characters :

The Soft Hyphen \x{00AD}

The Zero Width Space \x{200B}

The 9 characters, from \x{2060} to \x{2069}

So, a correct regex, to match all these format characters, above, in an Unicode encoded file, could be :

(?=[[:unicode:]])[[:cntrl:]\x{200B}\x{2060}-\x{2069}]|\xAD

Now, how to visualize a zero-width character ? If you just hit the Find Next button, you see that a specific line is reached but you do not know the exact location of this/these zero-width char(s) :-((

Two solutions are possible :

(?-s).((?=[[:unicode:]])[[:cntrl:]\x{200B}\x{2060}-\x{2069}]|\xAD)+.

Which match two standard characters, separated by, one or several consecutive format character(s)

((?=[[:unicode:]])[[:cntrl:]\x{200B}\x{2060}-\x{2069}]|\xAD)+

Which mark all these format chars, while clicking on the Mark All button ( the best solution, to my mind ! )

So, trying the simple regex \x{200B}, against the sentence, below and using the Mark option, will convince you that this sentence does contain some Zero Width Space characters, inside !

F​or exam​ple, I’ve ins​erted 10 ze​ro-width spa​ces in​to thi​s sentence, c​an you tel​​l me where ?

Note that, between the two letters l of the verb tell, there are two consecutive chars \x{200B} !

You can see a description of these format characters, from the following links :

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE70.pdf

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFFF0.pdf

Refer, also, to that post :

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/14812/how-to-search-for-unknown-3-digit-characters-with-black-background/2

Best Regards,

guy038

P.S. :

Simply, copy/paste the list and the sentence, above, in inverse video, in a new tab and enjoy !

For text processing, I use the jN plug-in for Notepad ++.
https://github.com/sieukrem/jn-npp-plugin
But it allows you to process text in the editor using JavaScript.
For example, cut lines longer than 300 characters:

function InputBox(psTxt, psCapt, psVal) {
var rv = psVal;
var so = new ActiveXObject(“MSScriptControl.ScriptControl”);
so.Language = ‘VBScript’;
var vCode =
’ Function getInputNumber() \n’+
’ val = InputBox(“‘+psTxt+’”,“‘+psCapt+’”,“‘+psVal+’”) \n’+
’ getInputNumber = val \n’+
‘End Function \n’;
so.AddCode(vCode);
rv = parseInt(so.Run(“getInputNumber”));
return rv;
}

// удаляем строки которые длинее n символов
function rowsOverLengthRemote(psOper) {
var vOLen = 300;
if(!psOper) { psOper = 1; }
vOLen = InputBox(‘Input length’,“For very long rows”,vOLen);
vOLen = parseInt(vOLen);
if(vOLen <= 40) {
return;
}
// debugger;
// return;
var vTextAll = Editor.currentView.text;
var vArr = vTextAll.split(‘\n’);
var vTextNeed = ‘’;
var vLine = ‘’;
for(var i = 0; i<vArr.length; i++) {
vLine = vArr[i];
if(vLine.length <= vOLen) {
vTextNeed = vTextNeed + ‘\n’ + vLine;
} else {
if(psOper == 2) {
message(“Cut string N: “+i+’ length” ‘+vLine.length+’ >> ‘+vLine.substring(0, 500));
vTextNeed = vTextNeed + ‘\n’ + vLine.substring(0,vOLen);
} else if(psOper == 1) {
message("Kill string N: "+i+’ length” ‘+vLine.length+’ >> '+vLine.substring(0, 500));
}

} } Editor.currentView.text = vTextNeed;

}

var myKillVeryLengthRows = {
text: “Удалить строки длинее N \tCtrl+Shift+K”,
ctrl: true, shift: true, alt: false,
key: 0x4B, // “K key”
cmd: rowsOverLengthRemote
};

addHotKey(myKillVeryLengthRows);
scriptsMenu.addItem(myKillVeryLengthRows);

function rowsOverLengthCut() { rowsOverLengthRemote(2); }
var myCutVeryLengthRows = {
text: "Обрезать строки длинее N ",
cmd: rowsOverLengthCut
};
scriptsMenu.addItem(myCutVeryLengthRows);

It also has the ability to display messages:

JavaScript alert (‘Message’) status (‘Message’); - in the status bar N ++ message (“Message”) - output to the man-made message box (my development):
http://prntscr.com/j6s9j9

Thanks so much. I never thought to look in the language settings, I was always looking in the edit settings.

Happy Day!

@Bekno

How about using the Find All in All Opened Documents button on the Find tab of the Find window??

Of course, maybe your request makes more sense (as a new feature) if you are talking about limiting the search to open tabs that match a certain filespec…