What's  sign at the beginning of my source file?

Question

I have a PHP source file where  characters automatically got added in! I don\'t know from where they have come. I\'m not getting any parse errors but it results in weird

Answer 1

From a tool like vi or vim, you can modify and save the file without a BOM with the two following commands :

:setlocal nobomb

and then

:w

Answer 2

You propably save the files as UTF-8 with BOM. You should save them as UTF-8 without BOM.

Answer 3

It's called Byte Order Mark, and doesn't always have to be "". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark

Some Windows applications add BOM by default. In Notepad++ you can use some options in the Encoding menu like Encode in UTF without BOM or Convert to UTF without BOM.

Answer 4

I believe that whether you save it UTF-8 with or without BOM it still happens. I don't think it makes a difference.

Try it, see if it helps.