How to use inline code with a trailing whitespace?

Question

When I use

``# ``

in my Sphinx documentation I get the following warning:

WARNING: Inline literal start-string without end-string.

Trying

:samp:`# `

leads to

WARNING: Inline interpreted text or phrase reference start-string without end-string.

The problem seems to be the trailing whitespace however I couldn't figure out a way of getting around this problem. Escaping the whitespace with a backslash (\) doesn't help either (for the first example the warning persists and for the second example the whitespace is omitted in the generated docs).

This answer doesn't work because the inline code section interprets the |space| as a literal string.

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Experienced with Sphinx 1.6.2.

Answer 1

A workaround is to use a no-break space character (U+00A0) instead of a regular space (U+0020) for the trailing whitespace.

There are several ways to insert a literal no-break space character. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-breaking_space#Keyboard_entry_methods.

Answer 2

Use a "literal" role__ with an escaped space after the intended trailing space::

:literal:`# \ `

__https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/roles.html#literal