No-break space causing problems in Xcode

Question

Quite often when I code in Xcode, I type no-break space (Option + Space / Option + Shift + Space) especially before or after square brackets or curly braces. This causes Xcode to give warning:

invalid character in source file

Is there any way to prevent this behavior, as it is really annoying and rarely necessary? I tried to look for an answer in Xcode menus and Google but didn't find anything proper.

Answer 1

I also had that problem (xCode 7.2) and found a workaround by assigning Option+Space and Option+Shift+Space to "Make Text Writing Direction Left ToRight" in Xcode

• Preferences (menu)
• Key Bindings(section)
• Default(drop down)
• Text(tab)
• Writing Direction(section)
• Make Text Writing Direction Left ToRight(command)
• Double-click and use (+) on the right to add key bindings.

You could assign them to any other command that doesn't have a useful effect for you.

It will make it seem that the space bar is not responding when you accidentally hold the modifier keys but that's much less of a time waster than the compilation errors.

Answer 2

Alt+Space command creates a special hidden character in Xcode files. You can see details of bug here.

For more details about solution checkout my answer on Xcode - Invalid character in source file (Replace “ ” with “ ”)