UILabel, UIFont and UTF-8 Triangle

Question

I'd like to use "BLACK RIGHT-POINTING TRIANGLE" (U+25B6) as a part of my UILabel's text. The label uses the system font (UIFont's systemFontOfSize:). The problem is that my triangle is rendered as a fancy image, not a "black right-pointing triangle". Is it possible to see the plain version?

This seems to be a (controversial) "feature": some characters are displayed as "Emojis". Searching for "disable emoji in UILabel" gives some hits. See also https://devforums.apple.com/message/487463#487463 (requires Apple Developer login). — Martin R, Dec 11 '12 at 18:40

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

16

Based on:

Unicode characters being drawn differently in iOS5

iOS 6 supports Unicode 6.1's variation selector, in this case \U0000FE0E. To answer my own question:

@"\U000025B6" // a fancy triangle (mapped to Emoji)
@"\U000025B6\U0000FE0E" // black right-pointing triangle

For more information check: http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.1.0/

Thanks @martin-r and @ACB, I wouldn't be able to figure this out without your hints!

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

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answered Dec 12 '12 at 08:55

Rudolf Adamkovič

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That looks like a clean solution! I assume that this works only on iOS 6? Does the problem occur on iOS 5 at all? – Martin R Dec 12 '12 at 09:11
I don't think I would have *ever* got there myself, thanks – Ben Clayton Aug 28 '15 at 16:42

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '12 at 18:46

In case someone doesn't have access to that devforums, the below mentioned line is the reply from Apple.

"With the set of fonts we ship in iOS, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN has the glyph you're looking for."

Try to use that particular font. That is the only way available now.

UILabel, UIFont and UTF-8 Triangle

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