Remove accents/diacritics in a string in JavaScript

Question

How do I remove accentuated characters from a string? Especially in IE6, I had something like this:

accentsTidy = function(s){
    var r=s.toLowerCase();
           


        

Answer 1

Here's a very simple solution without too much code using a very simple map of diacritics that includes some or all that map to ascii equivalents containing more than one character, i.e. Æ => AE, ffi => ffi, etc... Also included some very basic functional tests

var diacriticsMap = {
  '\u00C0': 'A',  // À => A
  '\u00C1': 'A',   // Á => A
  '\u00C2': 'A',   // Â => A
  '\u00C3': 'A',   // Ã => A
  '\u00C4': 'A',   // Ä => A
  '\u00C5': 'A',   // Å => A
  '\u00C6': 'AE', // Æ => AE
  '\u00C7': 'C',   // Ç => C
  '\u00C8': 'E',   // È => E
  '\u00C9': 'E',   // É => E
  '\u00CA': 'E',   // Ê => E
  '\u00CB': 'E',   // Ë => E
  '\u00CC': 'I',   // Ì => I
  '\u00CD': 'I',   // Í => I
  '\u00CE': 'I',   // Î => I
  '\u00CF': 'I',   // Ï => I
  '\u0132': 'IJ', // IJ => IJ
  '\u00D0': 'D',   // Ð => D
  '\u00D1': 'N',   // Ñ => N
  '\u00D2': 'O',   // Ò => O
  '\u00D3': 'O',   // Ó => O
  '\u00D4': 'O',   // Ô => O
  '\u00D5': 'O',   // Õ => O
  '\u00D6': 'O',   // Ö => O
  '\u00D8': 'O',   // Ø => O
  '\u0152': 'OE', // Π=> OE
  '\u00DE': 'TH', // Þ => TH
  '\u00D9': 'U',   // Ù => U
  '\u00DA': 'U',   // Ú => U
  '\u00DB': 'U',   // Û => U
  '\u00DC': 'U',   // Ü => U
  '\u00DD': 'Y',   // Ý => Y
  '\u0178': 'Y',   // Ÿ => Y
  '\u00E0': 'a',   // à => a
  '\u00E1': 'a',   // á => a
  '\u00E2': 'a',   // â => a
  '\u00E3': 'a',   // ã => a
  '\u00E4': 'a',   // ä => a
  '\u00E5': 'a',   // å => a
  '\u00E6': 'ae', // æ => ae
  '\u00E7': 'c',   // ç => c
  '\u00E8': 'e',   // è => e
  '\u00E9': 'e',   // é => e
  '\u00EA': 'e',   // ê => e
  '\u00EB': 'e',   // ë => e
  '\u00EC': 'i',   // ì => i
  '\u00ED': 'i',   // í => i
  '\u00EE': 'i',   // î => i
  '\u00EF': 'i',   // ï => i
  '\u0133': 'ij', // ij => ij
  '\u00F0': 'd',   // ð => d
  '\u00F1': 'n',   // ñ => n
  '\u00F2': 'o',   // ò => o
  '\u00F3': 'o',   // ó => o
  '\u00F4': 'o',   // ô => o
  '\u00F5': 'o',   // õ => o
  '\u00F6': 'o',   // ö => o
  '\u00F8': 'o',   // ø => o
  '\u0153': 'oe', // œ => oe
  '\u00DF': 'ss', // ß => ss
  '\u00FE': 'th', // þ => th
  '\u00F9': 'u',   // ù => u
  '\u00FA': 'u',   // ú => u
  '\u00FB': 'u',   // û => u
  '\u00FC': 'u',   // ü => u
  '\u00FD': 'y',   // ý => y
  '\u00FF': 'y',   // ÿ => y
  '\uFB00': 'ff', // ff => ff
  '\uFB01': 'fi',   // fi => fi
  '\uFB02': 'fl', // fl => fl
  '\uFB03': 'ffi',  // ffi => ffi
  '\uFB04': 'ffl',  // ffl => ffl
  '\uFB05': 'ft', // ſt => ft
  '\uFB06': 'st'  // st => st
};

function replaceDiacritics(str) {
  var returnStr = '';
  if(str) {
    for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
      if (diacriticsMap[str[i]]) {
        returnStr += diacriticsMap[str[i]];
      } else {
        returnStr += str[i];
      }
    }
  }
  return returnStr;
}

function testStripDiacritics(input, expected) {
  var coChar = replaceDiacritics(input);
  console.log('The character passed in was ' + input);
  console.log('The character that came out was ' + coChar);
  console.log('The character expected was' + expected);
}

testStripDiacritics('À','A');
testStripDiacritics('A','A');
testStripDiacritics('Æ','AE');
testStripDiacritics('AE','AE');
testStripDiacritics('ÇhÀrlËšYŸZŽ','ChArlEsYYZZ');