Convert Javascript UTF-8 to ASCII (like Iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $string) in PHP)

Question

I'm wondering how it's possible to 'translate' characters in UTF-8 to the closest ASCII equivalent using Javascript, just like Iconv doest in PHP.

Example:

ü becomes u
ó becomes o

I'd rather not use a replace, because a) it requires a complete set of characters, which is a lot of work and b) i'd would be hard to get a complete set of characters, and i'll never be certain if i'm missing one or two.

When you say "UTF-8", do you *really* mean UTF-8? Like, a string of "characters" whose elements are not actually characters at all, but simply UTF-8 code-units promoted to 16 bits? Or do you mean "Unicode", i.e., a normal JavaScript UTF-16 string? — ruakh, Nov 09 '12 at 14:12
It's possible, but there's no algorithmic way to do it besides having a map from Unicode values to whatever ASCII "equivalent" you (or somebody) think to be appropriate. Note that a UTF-8 string may include code points for *many* very different alphabets. — Pointy, Nov 09 '12 at 14:12
The term for this is 'transcription' or 'transliteration', there are probably some libraries out there. — kapex, Nov 09 '12 at 14:29

score 15 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 24 '16 at 12:05

15

The easiest way I've found:

var str = "üó";
var combining = /[\u0300-\u036F]/g; 

console.log(str.normalize('NFKD').replace(combining, ''));

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/normalize

edited Nov 24 '16 at 12:05

superhero

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answered May 13 '14 at 14:24

Rez

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Only drawback : it is part of EcmaScript 6, and doesn't work on all browsers – Pierre-Olivier Vares Oct 03 '14 at 16:28
Another drawback: only covers combining marks, not full transliteration. – cmbuckley Nov 23 '15 at 20:33
Check out similar SO question and accepted answer for comments why the above code won't work - the comments list letters that this code fails to replace: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/990904/remove-accents-diacritics-in-a-string-in-javascript – iaforek Jan 10 '20 at 12:57

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 08 '15 at 14:35

11

As @Pointy said, your only option is to map/replace characters according to a dictionary.

You'll find this really useful: https://github.com/backbone-paginator/backbone.paginator/blob/a579796a30e583c4dfa09e0a86e4abd21e0b5b56/plugins/diacritic.js

edited Jun 08 '15 at 14:35

timing

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answered Nov 09 '12 at 14:24

alexandernst

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Here's more http://unicode.org/repos/cldr/trunk/common/transforms/Latin-ASCII.xml – Esailija Nov 09 '12 at 14:26
Uoah @Esailija ! That's really complete! :) – alexandernst Nov 09 '12 at 14:28
I realize this is an old answer, but the GitHub link is broken. – Jaruba Feb 02 '15 at 13:18
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@Jaruba Here you go, mate :) https://github.com/backbone-paginator/backbone.paginator/blob/a579796a30e583c4dfa09e0a86e4abd21e0b5b56/plugins/diacritic.js – alexandernst Feb 02 '15 at 13:26

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 28 '20 at 07:20

2

There is now a port of iconv to JS: https://www.npmjs.com/package/iconv

var iconv = new Iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT//IGNORE');
iconv.convert('ça va が'); // "ca va "

answered Jun 28 '20 at 07:20

Madarco

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this should become the official answer. – steev Jun 23 '22 at 16:51

Convert Javascript UTF-8 to ASCII (like Iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $string) in PHP)

3 Answers3

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