Random † appears while editing in Text Edit

Question

I'm new to Macs and was editing my .js in text edit. I don't know when this happened but...4

†

appeared in my text. I don't even know how to make that symbol...I just copy pasted it over from Text Edit in to SO.

1. What is this?

2. Where did it come from?

I don't do anything weird in my text editing...just typing and some copy pasting.

Answer 1

That character is the dagger symbol and is usually used to denote a non-printable character such as space, tab, line feed, etc. What it means in your particular text editor, I am not sure.

Answer 2

Could you have pressed alt/option T?

Alt/option on a mac keyboard is used for typing special characters in addition to its usual role as a meta key. You can see its effect more easily with the keyboard viewer palette.

Answer 3

I believe this is a form feed char (\f in c). Some editors may use \n\f (line feed, form feed) for new lines. Your editor may only be expecting \n.