IOS NSCharacterSet for emoji and latin characters

Question

I'm trying to limit text user input to latin/english characters and emojis.

Is it possible to create an NSCharacterSet that includes all of these characters?

I tried using a keyboard type ASCIICapable on my input views, but then I don't get emoji input.

For anyone coming to this in the future, I needed this and made [an open source project called NSCharacterSet+EmojiCharacterSet](https://github.com/matthewpalmer/NSCharacterSet-EmojiCharacterSet) — matthewpalmer, May 08 '16 at 05:07

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 21 '16 at 07:39

There's nothing built in to create such a specific character set. You'll have to do it yourself by character range.

The Emoji characters are essentially in the range \U1F300 - \U1F6FF. I suppose a few others are scattered about.

Use an NSMutableCharacterSet to build up what you need.

NSMutableCharacterSet *aCharacterSet = [[NSMutableCharacterSet alloc] init];
[aCharacterSet addCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0x1F300, 0x1F700 - 0x1F300)]; // Add most of the Emoji characters
[aCharacterSet addCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange('A', 'Z'-'A'+1)]; // Add uppercase
[aCharacterSet addCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange('a', 'z'-'a'+1)]; // Add lowercase

Thanks rmaddy, this is what I need it. – Julio Garcia Apr 11 '16 at 23:17 — Julio Garcia, Apr 11 '16 at 23:17

Cœur · Answer 2 · 2016-11-21T07:53:21.140

Swift equivalent of rmaddy's answer to add up ranges in a CharacterSet:

var aCharacterSet = CharacterSet()
aCharacterSet.insert(charactersIn: "\u{1F300}"..<"\u{1F700}") // Add most of the Emoji characters
aCharacterSet.insert(charactersIn: "A"..."Z") // Add uppercase
aCharacterSet.insert(charactersIn: "a"..."z") // Add lowercase

Also, you will find the complete list of Unicode ranges for emoji on http://www.unicode.org/charts/ under Emoji & Pictographs.

IOS NSCharacterSet for emoji and latin characters

2 Answers2