How to use unicodes or special characters in SMS (Twilio, Plivo)

Question

In a case i have to send SMS with two whitespaces at the beginning of the message content as like below

  setparam 3003:70eac;

This is for some device configuration. But while receiving the SMS it is

setparam 3003:70eac;

The whitespaces are gone. This is how i send the SMS with php helper library

$client = new Client($account_sid, $auth_token);
$client->messages->create(
    '<to_number>',
    array(
        'from' => '<from_number>',
        'body' => '  setparam 3003:70eac;'
    )
);

I had also tried by sending as encoded like below

%20%20setparam%203003%3A70eac%3B

This results without parsing

%20%20setparam%203003%3A70eac%3B

Any help will be great support to me.

try using unicode white space , i.e – Shachaf.Gortler Mar 09 '18 at 18:00 — Shachaf.Gortler, Mar 09 '18 at 18:00
I tried it. it couldn't help. I sends as string " " – Rajez Mar 10 '18 at 05:24 — Rajez, Mar 10 '18 at 05:24

Rajez · Answer 1 · 2018-03-10T07:14:59.677

We couldn't use whitspaces normaly while sending SMS in Twilio or Plivo, as those were trimmed automatically. But can be send by escaping the unicode value of whitspace in the message.

Examples:

Python

from twilio.rest import Client

# Your Account SID from twilio.com/console
account_sid = "<twilio_sid>"
# Your Auth Token from twilio.com/console
auth_token  = "<twilio_token>"

client = Client(account_sid, auth_token)

message = client.messages.create(
    to="<to_number>",
    from_="<from_number>",
    body="\U00002001\U00002001Whitspace at front")

print(message.sid)

JSON

{
"src" : "<from_number>",
"dst" : "<to_number>", 
"text" : "\u0020\u0020Whitspace at front", 
"type" : "sms", 
"method" : "POST" 
}

PHP

<?php
// Required if your environment does not handle autoloading
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// Use the REST API Client to make requests to the Twilio REST API
use Twilio\Rest\Client;

// Your Account SID and Auth Token from twilio.com/console
$sid = 'ACfe1c3f0e87c51710e95e842f2e71922b';
$token = 'your_auth_token';
$client = new Client($sid, $token);

// Use the client to do fun stuff like send text messages!
$client->messages->create(
    // the number you'd like to send the message to
    '+15558675309',
    array(
        // A Twilio phone number you purchased at twilio.com/console
        'from' => '+15017250604',
        // the body of the text message you'd like to send
        'body' => "\020\020Whitspace at front"
    )
);

You can see the message body is denoted with double quotes(") . That is important in PHP. Denoting with single quote(') won't work. The different quote usages in PHP and Double quoted strings.

More reference links for PHP.

Result:

'  Whitspace at front'

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '20 at 15:38

0

In twilio you will have to use Unicode 'Punctuation Space' which is '\2008'. '\0020' wont work.

answered Aug 09 '20 at 15:38

Joaquim Cardeira

71
3

How to use unicodes or special characters in SMS (Twilio, Plivo)

2 Answers2