Working with Unicode

Level: Beginner

Knowledge Required:

• String

Description:
Recently I have developed a Small Project Urdu Text Editor, in which I have used the Unicodes to display Urdu in Rich Text Box Control.

Thanks to Unicode, it has made our life so easy. In Urdu we have several forms of a single character unlike English in which we only have 1 form for each character. Normally there are 4 forms for each character in Urdu, e.g. Bay

1) Isolated Form of Bay

2) Initial Form of Bay

3) Middle Form of Bay

4) Final Form of Bay


If we do this manually then we have to do lots of coding, but as I have told that Unicode has made things much easier. Therefore we simply have to put the isolated form in the String and rest of the forms will be automatically handled by the Operating System.

Dim sBay As String
Dim sAlif As String
Dim sBaa As String
' get bay
sBay = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(New Byte() {&H28, &H6})
' get alif
sAlif = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(New Byte() {&H27, &H6})
' combining bay and alif => baa
sBaa = sBay & sAlif
Debug.Print(sBaa)

See above code in action:
Urdu Text Editor