how to encode and decode emoji in android?

Question

I used https://github.com/rockerhieu/emojicon library in my application. When I pass a static unicode string in my code the emoji is visible but if I send the emoji to php server using regular get webservice and retrive the string then it just showing unicode string into my application. both static and server retrieved strings are same if I compare.

Can anybody tell me what wrong I have done into my application. the same application is developed in IOS and what they did is they first encoding the string into ASCII>UTF-8 while sending to server. then they are decoding the string in same way as they send. Can anybody suggest me IF this would be compatible with android also, If yes then how can I do this.

Evolutionist

#14489003 – Busboy

@AvinashBabu:- need in android and have any idea how to encode and decode bcz have to send on server and get so please give me some advise......Thanks – Evolutionist

Hey @Evolutionist did you find how to send emoji to the server?Thanks in Advance. – Repurchase

Answer 1

We can use commons-lang(commons-lang-2.5.jar) library for encoding and decoding of the unicode characters. Download jar file here or use gradle: compile 'org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.4'.

For Encoding use - StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(String text) This can be used in android EditText when call getText method, where it will encode the unicode characters properly before sending to web server.

For Decoding use - StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(String text) This can be used in android TextView to setText, where it will decode the unicode characters properly after receiving the response from web server.

Ex:

EditText etEmojiEditText = new EditText(this);
etEmojiEditText.setText("TYPE SOMETHING IN EMOJI");

String toServer = etEmojiEditText.getText();
String toServerUnicodeEncoded = StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(toServer);

String serverResponse = "SOME RESPONSE FROM SERVER WITH UNICODE CHARACTERS";
String fromServerUnicodeDecoded = StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(serverResponse);

FYI Use the encoding and decoding for web service side as well. Unicode encoded string should be decoded from web service and response from web service should be encoded before sending to clients. Server tables should contain utf8mb4 instead of utf8, because unicode character needs 4bytes per character. Therefore unicode will not be represented in 3bytes.

Penates

I am also using the same library to handle emoticons.I am encoding the emoji to unicode characters using String toServerUnicodeEncoded = StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(toServer) and decoding using String fromServerUnicodeDecoded = StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(serverResponse) . While displaying the decoded emoji in EmojiconTextView ,unicode is displayed .Its corresponding Emoji is not displayed .Please help me to fix the issue . – Lunch

I Got IllegalArgumentException with this library : Less than 4 hex digits in unicode value: '\u062' due to end of CharSequence – Subminiature

The updated version of compile 'org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.4' i.e, 3.7 has deprecated StringEscapeUtils . Use implementation 'org.apache.commons:commons-text:1.3' instead of compile 'org.apache.commons:commons-lang3:3.4' . – Mcnary

And make sure to import StringEscapeUtils from org.apache.commons:commons-text:1.3 – Mcnary

AWESOME . after 3 hours of research :D – Itol

Answer 2

I have used the same library as you for emoji. I have used URLEncoder.encode(commentString, "UTF-8") for encoding and similarly, URLDecoder.decode(encodedComment, "UTF-8") for decoding.

Works perfectly for me. Hopefully for you too.

Garfield

this is working fine but this does not provide correct unicode – Sugihara

Please explain "does not provide correct unicode", are you not getting it in "UTF-8" format? and how have you determined that you are not getting the encoding in utf-8 ? – Garfield

I have also written that it is working fine just for encoding but in case to get native emoji text that can be used by other application is not possible by this. – Sugihara

Here first you encode the text including the emoji. Any other place if you decode the content, you would get the same emoji as long as that other place also supports utf-8. – Garfield

Can u please help me to convert the "5794d5f7895fa10a8f8e1357" into the emoji @NeerajShukla Thanks – Derringer

Answer 3

Emojis needs to be encoded and decoded . You should send the text to server by encoding and show again in the app by decoding the same. The code is below for the encryption and decryption.

public static String encodeEmoji (String message) {
try {
return URLEncoder.encode(message,
"UTF-8");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
return message;
}
}


public static String decodeEmoji (String message) {
String myString= null;
try {
return URLDecoder.decode(
message, "UTF-8");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
return message;
}
} 

Unswear

Woking for me thanks a lot... – Shadwell

Answer 4

In my case all text in message disappears after symbols & and +, so I decided to replace them before sending and after receiving and it works well for me.

private String encodeMessage(String message) {
    message = message.replaceAll("&", ":and:");
    message = message.replaceAll("\\+", ":plus:");
    return StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(message);
}

private String decodeMessage(String message) {
    message = message.replaceAll(":and:", "&");
    message = message.replaceAll(":plus:", "+");
    return StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(message);
}

Risible

Answer 5

I am using the same library ... You don't need to encode or escape the emoji ... simply getText().toString() will work.

Follow the steps

In mysql change the field collation to utf8mb4_unicode_ci (my database and table collation is utf8_unicode_ci)

Used PHP Codigniter on server so the database configuration

'char_set' => 'utf8mb4',
'dbcollat' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci'

Then in Android use textView.getText().toString(); then send the text without using any encode or escape

Cheng

Answer 6

You can encode and decode emoticons without using any libraries in android if you are receiving unicode from your server .

Example :

U+1F601 is 16 bit unicode.

Replace U+ with 0x.

  int originalUnicode=0x1F601;
  textView.setText(getEmoticon(originalUnicode));


  public String getEmoticon(int originalUnicode) {
    return new String(Character.toChars(originalUnicode));
}

Exclaim

What if my originalUnicode is int the form of String? – Police

@Dennis, parse to int then Character.toChars(yourInt) – Cernuous

I mean, what if my server sends me an emoji code in String form, for instance "U+1F601". How will I parse it into an int? Integer.ParseInt() doesn't work here. – Police

Answer 7

Convert unicode to emoji in whole content without using any library.

private String convertEmoji(String content) {
    content = content.replaceAll("U\\+", "0x");
    String keyword = "0x";

    int index = content.indexOf(keyword);
    int spaceIndex;

    while (index >=0){
        spaceIndex = content.indexOf(" ", index);

        if(spaceIndex > index) {
            String emoji = content.substring(index, spaceIndex);
            content = content.replaceAll(emoji, getEmoticon(Integer.decode(emoji)));
        }
        index = content.indexOf(keyword, index+keyword.length());
    }

    return content;
}

Dropline

What is about getEmoticon method? What does it make? – Pyx

Answer 8

  // convert UTF-8 to internal Java String format
    public static String convertUTF8ToString(String s) {
        String out = null;
        out = new String(s.getBytes(StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
        return out;
    }

    // convert internal Java String format to UTF-8
    public static String convertStringToUTF8(String s) {
       return new String(s.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8), StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1);
    }

Haze