How can I put 0x08 ascii character using MacBook?

Question

I'm writing this question because one little invisible problem has taken from me hours and hours of dummy searchings, and the time just has been wasted (here is that question: CSS: Is there any difference between these two parts?)

Does anybody know how the character 0x08 ("backspace" in ASCII) can be written into a text using a MacBook and a simple IDE (I use the "Coda")?

There is no ability to press Alt + 08 on MacBook (there is no digital keys part on the MacBook's keyboard).

How it can happen?

Answer 1

Not sure if this is the easiest way, but:

1. In the Keyboard system preferences panel, check "Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar".
2. Find the Keyboard menu bar icon (on the right side of the menu bar), click it, and select "Show Character Viewer".
3. In the Characters window that appears, find the "View" pop up menu and select "Code Tables".
4. Select the Unicode coding tab.
5. In the middle section where all the characters are displayed, click on the entry for 0008 (it will be blank, but the Name: field will say "BACKSPACE").
6. Click the Insert button in the same window.

Since the character is non-printable, it doesn't actually show anything in the text editor, but (at least in TextEdit) you will see that you have to hit the left or right arrow key more than once to move past it. I also confirmed by dumping the file in hex that it contains a 08 byte.

You could also use this technique to set up a Text Substitution in the Text tab of the Language & Text system preference panel.

Answer 2

Shift + Up Arrow + Delete/Backspace. It's a bug.

http://www.openradar.me/5288750

Answer 3

Did you copy & paste it from anywhere? Because the only way I know - apart from what SCFrench suggested - is to enable this in Terminal by typing:

stty erase SPACE CTRL+V CTRL+H RETURN