Non-breaking spaces in console

[rmcminds]

Since switching from RStudio to Positron, when I copy code that I typed directly into the console and then paste it right back in, it won't run. For some reason, when copying out of the console, all spaces (U0020) are converted into a different character - nonbreaking spaces (U00a0). R code with these characters generates errors and gets highlighted when pasted into working scripts inside Positron.

I thought about starting an issue, but I'm surprised there seems to be no other mention of this in existing issues or discussions. Other people must be having the same issue, right?? So maybe it's intentional and I'm just not doing things as intended, or have some odd setup. I recently switched from Mac to Windows, so my whole workflow is messed up and I'm not super familiar with operating system settings.

[jonvanausdeln]

Hi @rmcminds , thanks for your observation. I can't seem to reproduce your issue. Can you share a snipped of code that you are typing, then copy/pasting?

[rmcminds]

Here's a screenshot where I've literally just typed c(1,2,3) and c(1, 2, 3), then copied directly from the console and pasted directly back into the console:

You can see when I've typed spaces directly, the code runs, but when I copy and paste the same code, it has an error.

And here, I typed the top line in the editor, copied and pasted it once (ok), then pasted what I copied from the Console (non-breaking spaces highlighted as mistakes):

[rmcminds]

here is my session info - though I've noticed this problem consistently through many updates over the last few months:

Positron Version: 2025.10.1 (system setup) build 4
Code - OSS Version: 1.103.0
Commit: b13dd1c
Date: 2025-10-14T22:13:39.363Z
Electron: 37.2.3
Chromium: 138.0.7204.100
Node.js: 22.17.0
V8: 13.8.500258-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

R version 4.5.0 (2025-04-11 ucrt) -- "How About a Twenty-Six"
Copyright (C) 2025 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64

[jennybc]

I can't reproduce this either. I'm on:

Positron Version: 2025.11.0 (system setup) build 88
Code - OSS Version: 1.104.0
Commit: 6c8782e
Date: 2025-10-20T15:07:15.650Z
Electron: 37.3.1
Chromium: 138.0.7204.235
Node.js: 22.18.0
V8: 13.8.258.31-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

[jennybc]

@rmcminds I feel like there must be some other, as-yet-unknown player here. Do you have any third party utilities installed, like a clipboard manager? Is there any sort of accessibility feature turned on? That sort of thing.

[rmcminds]

Hm, I suppose it's possible there's something like that among all the pre-installed bloatware on this thing... But it doesn't seem to be an operating-system-wide issue because even within Positron, there is no problem when copying from the editor - only the console.

I just tested the same c(1, 2, 3) code in the Terminal within Positron, and when I pasted it into the Console it was fine. It also just occurred to me to copy a command from the Console before running it - and that was fine. I don't seem to have an issue when I run the same installation of R interactively in the Windows Terminal app with Git Bash. It seems like very specifically the Console in Positron is consistently using non-breaking spaces to display previous commands.

[testlabauto]

For what its worth, the editor and the console do indeed use   for the display. This comes up often in automated tests. I was under the impression that the "copy" code path replaced the non breaking spaces with spaces.

[rmcminds]

Interesting... But if both the editor and the console use   for display, then you're correct that it's replaced during copy for the editor. But not for the console for me. Strange that this seems to be specific to me though. I've been scanning through all my accessibility settings and haven't found anything. I also changed the display font in Positron and that didn't fix it.

Thanks for your help so far.

[jennybc]

@rmcminds You might want to use some clipboard inspection utility to see if you can glean any useful info about when the nonbreaking spaces are present/absent 🤷‍♀️ But, yeah, this problem does seem to somehow be unique to you? At least, I'm not aware of other reports.

What gesture are you using to copy? I'm just throwing out questions at this point. I have no theory.

[rmcminds]

Ok so it did just occur to me that I remember being annoyed when I first switched months ago that I had to right-click/copy and right-click/paste in either the Terminal or the Console (I don't remember which but I do remember that it was only one of them), because I would normally use ctrl-c and ctrl-v, but they didn't work. So that's what I've gotten used to doing and was doing so for these tests. I just tried ctrl-c and ctrl-v, and the problem disappears! And I also seem to be able to use the keyboard shortcuts in both the Terminal and the Console now, so that older problem seems to have resolved itself somehow

In summary now:

right click copy + right click paste: problem
right click copy + ctrl-v: problem
ctrl-c + ctrl-v: no problem
ctrl-c + right click paste: no problem

[jonvanausdeln]

@rmcminds I can repro with the right click copy! I'll open an issue. Thanks for all the feedback and debugging!

[rmcminds]

Oh thank goodness I'm not insane! Thanks everyone

[rmcminds]

I did also just find this VSCode issue that might be relevant?

microsoft/vscode#88178

[jonvanausdeln]

I just opened up an issue for us to track #10058

[rmcminds]

Thanks!