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Github-flavored markdown: do not interpret emojis?

In a README.md file for a GitHub repo I am working on, we want to display a URL that has the string of characters :x: in it (unfortunately the link is to a data repo so I can't post it).

However, GitHub interprets the :x: as ❌ and it irritates me so much. The link is still clickable and works fine but I would really like to suppress this emoji from showing up because I hate the way it looks.

My first thought was to use backticks (`), but then the link is not clickable. Is there a link I can use to have the URL be clickable but without showing the emoji?

Solution

  • You can add zero-width space after the first colon and it'll get fixed. It's basically a hack but skipping emoji is not supported yet.

    More specifically, this character: ‌, a zero-width non-joiner. It does not show up and is easy to remember as well. You can also select the character itself and paste it, here's the character, between A and B: A‌B
    Select the text and remove A and B from it and you'll have it.

    Here's some code I tested on GitHub:

    Does not work:  
[some-link:x:a](destination)

Works but is not really readable here:  
[some-link:‌x:a](destination)

or works and is readable as well:  
[some-link:‌x:a](destination)