Non-Breaking Space vs Space Hash – NBSP SHA-256 Difference

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Show that an NBSP and a normal ASCII space are different hash inputs.

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Unicode whitespace and hashes

Why does a non-breaking space hash differently from a normal space?

U+00A0 and U+0020 can look alike, but they are different Unicode characters with different UTF-8 byte sequences. Their hashes therefore differ. This tool is free to use. No account or payment is required.

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What you can do here

  • MD5 text digests
  • SHA-1 text digests
  • SHA-256 text digests
  • SHA-512 text digests
  • Exact text byte sensitivity
  • Browser-local hashing

Steps

  1. Inspect the whitespace code point.
  2. Replace U+00A0 with U+0020 only when normalization is intended.
  3. Re-hash the exact canonical text on both systems.

Whitespace characters are not interchangeable bytes

Rich text and HTML workflows frequently introduce non-breaking spaces. A hash function has no visual notion of whitespace equivalence; it processes the encoded data.

NBSP vs ASCII space

The visual gap differs by Unicode code point.

Input comparison

hello<U+00A0>world
hello world

SHA-256 digests

NBSP: 2644b77c5d4804904df4fc24ad17154ee99bd9fc74557e16246843c1ceee0d0c
space: b94d27b9934d3e08a52e52d7da7dabfac484efe37a5380ee9088f7ace2efcde9

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

Is NBSP the same byte as a normal space?

No. U+00A0 and U+0020 are different code points and encode differently in UTF-8.

Does VetaTool normalize whitespace?

No. The text input is hashed as entered.

Recommended next steps

Zero-Width Space Changes HashCompare text with an invisible U+200B character at the end.Tab vs Spaces HashCompare a tab character with an ordinary space in the same text.Hash Generator Online – MD5 & SHAGenerate MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 digests for exact text locally.

Debugging a specific Hash issue? Browse Hash troubleshooting.