IOS How to remove Zero Width Space [ E2 80 8B ] from NSString

Question

With copy/paste, one of my clients put in a textfield of my IOS app a text containing Zero Width Space [ E2 80 8B ] and I want to remove them.

here's an example of text : basse ​température ​avec ​dégivrage ​électrique

what I tried :

NSString* zarb = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%c%c%c",0xE2,0x80,0x8B];
NSString*resu=[ch stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:zarb withString:@""];
// does not work

if ([ch rangeOfString:zarb].location != NSNotFound) {
      // does not work
}

The hexa sequence IS in the string but I cannot remove it. Someone has already got this problem ?

Answer 1

The "zero width space" is the Unicode character \U200B. The E2 80 8B is the UTF-8 encoding.

Try this:

NSString* zarb = @"\u200B";
NSString* resu = [ch stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:zarb withString:@""];

BTW - your attempt to do:

NSString* zarb = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%c%c%c",0xE2,0x80,0x8B];

results in an invalid string because there are no Unicode characters for 80 and 8B.