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Javascript: Unicode string split by chars

I have a javascript string which contains some tamil characters. I need to split them into individual unicode characters. The split method does not understand the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_text_layout Complex text layout.

For example:

Calling split(“”) on “கதிரவன்” returns:

,க,த,ி,ர,வ,ன,்

when I expected:

க,தி,ர,வ,ன்

What should be done to split unicode characters from a string properly ?

Edit: I can navigate these letters just fine in the browser (chrome). I am trying to use this js in a chrome extension. So I am fine if there is a chrome-specific solution too.

Answer 1

This is totally doable.

First off, you create a set/dictionary which includes all diacritic-like characters as keys, we could name it as diacritics, and implement it just with a object literal:

var diacritics = {'\u0bbf':true,'\u0bcd':true,...};

Then do this:

var tempList = "கதிரவன்".split('');
var targetList = [];
for(var idx in tempList){
  if(diacritics[tempList[idx]])
    targetList[targetList.length - 1] +=  tempList[idx];
  else
    targetList.push(tempList[idx]);
}

We don’t even need a tempList, just loop over the str char by char will do the job:

for(var i = 0; i != str.length; ++i){
  var ch = str[i];
  diacritics[ch] ? (targetList[targetList.length - 1] += ch) : targetList.push(ch);
}