Converting Java String to ascii

Question

I need to convert Strings that consists of some letters specific to certain languages (like HÄSTDJUR - note Ä) to a String without those special le

Answer 1

I think your question is the same as this one:

Java - getting rid of accents and converting them to regular letters

and hence the answer is also the same:

Solution

String convertedString = 
       Normalizer
           .normalize(input, Normalizer.Form.NFD)
           .replaceAll("[^\\p{ASCII}]", "");

References

See

• JavaDoc: Normalizer.normalize(String, Normalizer.Form)
• JavaDoc: Normalizer.Form.NFD
• Sun Java Tutorial: Normalizer's API

Example Code:

final String input = "Tĥïŝ ĩš â fůňķŷ Šťŕĭńġ";
System.out.println(
    Normalizer
        .normalize(input, Normalizer.Form.NFD)
        .replaceAll("[^\\p{ASCII}]", "")
);

Output:

This is a funky String

Answer 2

I'd suggest a mapping, of special characters, to the ones you want.

Ä --> A
é --> e
A --> A (exactly the same)
etc...

And then you can just call your mapping over your text (in pseudocode):

for letter in string:
   newString += map(letter)

Effectively, you need to create a set of rules for what character maps to the ASCII equivalent.