从字符串中删除隐藏的字符

Question

I am trying to remove the mark up from the string like below

 string name = results[i].ToString();
 var b = Regex.Replace(name, "<.*?>",string.Empty);

String name looks like <div class="ExternalClassA6E"><p>​<span>GET6</span></p></div>

When I debug I dont see any extra spl characters in the b. But when see in the application after it ran a ? at the front of the varaiable b like ?GET6. Is there something special about the markups here?

Answer 1

I copied your text above and ran some tests on it, and it is indeed acting very strangely! There appears to be an actual hidden character in your string that does not display in the editor, but does appear when the string is parsed or written to the console.

To test what you were saying, I pasted your string in my editor and ran some code, and I also saw the ? character in the output. So then I typed the same text and ran the same tests, and there's no ? there:

private static void Main()
{
    string copiedText = ">​<";
    string typedText  = "><";

    Console.WriteLine("\nCopied Text Results\n" + "-------------------");
    Console.WriteLine("\nLength: " + copiedText.Length);
    Console.WriteLine("\nCharacters and ascii values:");
    Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ",
        copiedText.Select(character => character + " = " + (int) character)));
    Console.WriteLine("\nString value:");
    Console.WriteLine(copiedText);
    Console.WriteLine("\nHtml Decoded value:");
    Console.WriteLine(HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(copiedText));

    Console.WriteLine(Environment.NewLine + new string('-', Console.WindowWidth));

    Console.WriteLine("\nTyped Text Results\n" + "------------------");
    Console.WriteLine("\nLength: " + typedText.Length);
    Console.WriteLine("\nCharacters and ascii values:");
    Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ",
        typedText.Select(character => character + " = " + (int) character)));
    Console.WriteLine("\nString value:");
    Console.WriteLine(typedText);
    Console.WriteLine("\nHtml Decoded value:");
    Console.WriteLine(HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(typedText));

    GetKeyFromUser("\nDone! Press any key to exit...");
}

Output

I guess this isn't really an answer, so I'll delete it shortly, but maybe it will spark someone else to provide some feedback.