Horizontal ellipsis, U+2026

One character that renders as three dots with typographic spacing, rather than three separate periods.

How it works

U+2026 is a single character whose glyph is three dots with the spacing a typographer would choose, tighter and more even than three full stops with the font's default advance between them. It also cannot be broken across a line, which three separate periods can. Because it is one character rather than three, everything that counts or splits behaves differently: a length check sees one where you expected three, which matters against a hard field limit; a search for three periods does not find it and a search for it does not find them; and code that splits a sentence on periods finds no periods at all.

What it is legitimately for

Correct typography for an omission or a trailing thought. It spaces better than three periods and cannot be broken across a line.

What it breaks

• A search for three periods does not find it, and a search for it does not find three periods.
• A character count is one where you expected three, which matters in a field with a hard limit.
• Text-processing code that splits on periods sees no periods at all.

How to find it yourself

Look for e2 80 a6 in a hex dump, or select the dots: an ellipsis selects as a single character.

What Clipboard Sanitizer does

Replaced with three ASCII periods.