Is there a way to get rid of accents and convert a whole string to regular letters?

Question

Is there a better way for getting rid of accents and making those letters regular apart from using String.replaceAll() method and replacing letters one by one?

Answer 1

In case anyone is strugling to do this in kotlin, this code works like a charm. To avoid inconsistencies I also use .toUpperCase and Trim(). then i cast this function:

   fun stripAccents(s: String):String{

   if (s == null) {
      return "";
   }

val chars: CharArray = s.toCharArray()

var sb = StringBuilder(s)
var cont: Int = 0

while (chars.size > cont) {
    var c: kotlin.Char
    c = chars[cont]
    var c2:String = c.toString()
   //these are my needs, in case you need to convert other accents just Add new entries aqui
    c2 = c2.replace("Ã", "A")
    c2 = c2.replace("Õ", "O")
    c2 = c2.replace("Ç", "C")
    c2 = c2.replace("Á", "A")
    c2 = c2.replace("Ó", "O")
    c2 = c2.replace("Ê", "E")
    c2 = c2.replace("É", "E")
    c2 = c2.replace("Ú", "U")

    c = c2.single()
    sb.setCharAt(cont, c)
    cont++

}

return sb.toString()

}

to use these fun cast the code like this:

     var str: String
     str = editText.text.toString() //get the text from EditText
     str = str.toUpperCase().trim()

     str = stripAccents(str) //call the function