Android - How to filter emoji (emoticons) from a string?

Question

I\'m working on an Android app, and I do not want people to use emoji in the input.

How can I remove emoji characters from a string?

Answer 1

Here is what I use to remove emojis. Note: This only works on API 24 and forwards

public  String remove_Emojis_For_Devices_API_24_Onwards(String name)
   {
    // we will store all the non emoji characters in this array list
     ArrayList nonEmoji = new ArrayList<>();

    // this is where we will store the reasembled name
    String newName = "";

    //Character.UnicodeScript.of () was not added till API 24 so this is a 24 up solution
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 23) {
        /* we are going to cycle through the word checking each character
         to find its unicode script to compare it against known alphabets*/
        for (int i = 0; i < name.length(); i++) {
            // currently emojis don't have a devoted unicode script so they return UNKNOWN
            if (!(Character.UnicodeScript.of(name.charAt(i)) + "").equals("UNKNOWN")) {
                nonEmoji.add(name.charAt(i));//its not an emoji so we add it
            }
        }
        // we then cycle through rebuilding the string
        for (int i = 0; i < nonEmoji.size(); i++) {
            newName += nonEmoji.get(i);
        }
    }
    return newName;
}

so if we pass in a string:

remove_Emojis_For_Devices_API_24_Onwards("