Colons being rendered in HTML

[Rick_SAS]

A week or two ago I noticed that the editor is incorrectly rendering the colon.  On the next line I will type the word "DATA" followed by a colon, like so

DATA: How is the colon rendered?

As you can see, there is a problem.  It only seems to occur for some words...maybe SAS keywords?

QUESTION: This is 1.

ANSWER: This is 2.

PROC: This is 3.

DO: This is 4.

RUN: This is 5.

 I don't know what's happening.

[RW9]

I have noticed this on peoples posts, and wondered where it came from.  My suggestion would be, if you want to put code in the post use either {i} - general code, or the SAS run icon from the toolbar above the post rather than putting it into plain text in the post.

[Rick_SAS]

Any update on this from a community administrator such as @ChrisHemedinger? Has this been reported?

[ChrisHemedinger]

I have seen this once or twice myself.  Now that I see other people are affected, I'll report it.  Our platform received a minor upgrade last week and I think this was introduced then.

[ChrisHemedinger · Accepted solution]

Turns out that this is special to the combination of "data" followed by a colon.  It's insurance against a potential web vulnerability.  I don't have more details (guessing a javascript/JSON nuance), but apparently this behavior is not new and has been around for a long time.  When you see it in your own messages, the only option is to reword or use different punctuation.  May I suggest the interrobang?

[FreelanceReinh]

For me, the following trick seemed to be working: Write the colon in a different font than the word "data."

So, if "data" is written in the default font (Arial, I think) and the colon is written in Helvetica (which is very similar to Arial, please note that I've written "Helvetica" in this font), the "&colon" effect does not occur.

Test:

all in default font: data:

all in Helvetica: data:

"data" in default font, colon in Helvetica: data:

[ChrisHemedinger]

Creative workaround! I can see why that works as a loophole, but congrats for figuring that out!

[FreelanceReinh]

Thanks!

One more test:

"data" in default font, colon in Arial (!): data:

Edit: It works! So, no need to scroll down to Helvetica any longer! 🙂

[Rick_SAS]

Use bold (CTRL+B), which can be typed by using a keyboard shortcut:

Bold data:

Italics (CTRL+I) also works, but is harder to see.