Remove Accents/Diacritics in a String in Javascript

As developers, we often come across situations where we need to manipulate strings in various ways. One common requirement is to remove accents or diacritics from a string in JavaScript. Accented characters can cause issues when performing string comparisons or when working with APIs that do not handle them properly. In this blog post, we will explore multiple solutions to remove accents/diacritics in a string using JavaScript.

Solution 1: Using Regular Expressions

One way to remove accents from a string is by using regular expressions. We can create a regular expression pattern that matches all accented characters and replace them with their non-accented counterparts.

function removeAccents(str) {
  return str.normalize('NFD').replace(/[u0300-u036f]/g, '');
}

const inputString = 'Café';
const outputString = removeAccents(inputString);
console.log(outputString); // Output: Cafe

In the above code snippet, we define a function removeAccents that takes a string as input. We use the normalize method with the 'NFD' argument to decompose the accented characters into their combining forms. Then, we use the replace method with a regular expression pattern /[u0300-u036f]/g to match all combining diacritical marks and replace them with an empty string.

Solution 2: Using a Library

If you prefer a more comprehensive solution or want to handle more complex scenarios, you can use a library like diacritics. This library provides a set of functions to remove diacritics from strings in JavaScript.

To use the diacritics library, you need to install it first. You can install it using npm:

npm install diacritics

Once installed, you can require the library and use its remove function to remove diacritics from a string:

const diacritics = require('diacritics');

const inputString = 'Café';
const outputString = diacritics.remove(inputString);
console.log(outputString); // Output: Cafe

The diacritics.remove function takes a string as input and returns the string with diacritics removed.

These are two common solutions to remove accents/diacritics in a string using JavaScript. Depending on your specific use case, you can choose the solution that best fits your needs. Whether you prefer a simple regular expression-based approach or a more comprehensive library, removing accents from strings is now easier than ever.