How to include emoticons in Swift string?

Question

Here is a pretty good article that references iOS emoticons and their code. For example \ue008 for the small camera.

I tried this in my code :

var myText: String = "\ue008"

This is not accepted by Xcode. How to include it ?

Answer 1

If I understand what you are trying to achieve, then:

Press "ctrl + cmd + space" while in XCode. A sample usage of 'hearts' emoticon

cell.textLabel?.text = "❤️" + " \(liker) liked \(userBeingliked)'s photo"

Answer 2

That's from swift documentation:

let dollarSign = "\u{24}"        // $,  Unicode scalar U+0024
let blackHeart = "\u{2665}"      // ♥,  Unicode scalar U+2665
let sparklingHeart = "\u{1F496}" // 💖, Unicode scalar U+1F496

Answer 3

You don't need the unicode constants at all. Just use the character viewer and type the character directly. 😝

let sparklingHeart = "💖"

Answer 4

1 Decoding the Unicode:

extension String {
    var decodeEmoji: String{
        let data = self.data(using: String.Encoding.utf8);
        let decodedStr = NSString(data: data!, encoding: String.Encoding.nonLossyASCII.rawValue)
        if let str = decodedStr{
            return str as String
        }
        return self
    }
}

Usage

let decodedString = yourString.decodeEmoji

2 Encoding the Unicode:

extension String {
    var encodeEmoji: String{
        if let encodeStr = NSString(cString: self.cString(using: .nonLossyASCII)!, encoding: String.Encoding.utf8.rawValue){
            return encodeStr as String
        }
        return self
    }
}

Usage

let encodedString = yourString.encodeEmoji