Understanding String Length Calculations for Emojis Across Programming Languages
By
program
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Summary
This article examines the complex issue of string length calculation for emojis and Unicode characters across different programming languages (JavaScript, Swift, Python). The author argues that JavaScript's approach of returning the number of UTF-16 code units (which gives 7 for "🤦🏼♂️") is actually reasonable, while criticizing Python 3's approach as the worst. The article provides technical explanations about Unicode encoding, grapheme clusters, and why different languages make different design choices for string length calculations.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledFrom time to time, someone shows that in JavaScript the .length of a string containing an emoji results in a number greater than 1 (typically 2) and then proceeds to the conclusion that haha JavaScript is so broken
I will try to convince you that ridiculing JavaScript for this is less insightful than it first appears
Swift's approach to string length isn't unambiguously the best one
Python 3's approach is unambiguously the worst one, though
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