Meziantou.Framework

Getting started

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Install the package

Add the Meziantou.Framework.Unicode package to a project:

dotnet package add Meziantou.Framework.Unicode

The examples of this documentation omit the using directives: they need using Meziantou.Framework;, and using System.Text; or using System.Globalization; for a few types of .NET (Rune, NormalizationForm, UnicodeCategory).

Split a text into characters

A string is a sequence of UTF-16 code units: an accented letter can be two of them, and an emoji four or more. What a reader sees as one character is a grapheme cluster:

var text = "e\u0301\U0001F44D\U0001F3FD"; // "e" and a combining acute accent, then a thumbs up with a skin tone
Assert.HasCount(6, text); // 6 UTF-16 code units, not characters

// What a reader sees as characters: the grapheme clusters
var characters = new List<string>();
foreach (Range cluster in Unicode.EnumerateGraphemeClusters(text))
{
    characters.Add(text[cluster]);
}

Assert.Equal(["e\u0301", "\U0001F44D\U0001F3FD"], characters);

// The composed form of the text, the same on every platform
Assert.Equal("\u00E9\U0001F44D\U0001F3FD", UnicodeNormalization.Normalize(text));

Next steps