Unicode::Emoji

Provides Unicode Emoji data and regexes, incorporating the latest Unicode and Emoji standards.

Also includes a categorized list of recommended Emoji.

Emoji version: 15.1 (September 2023)

CLDR version (used for sub-region flags): 43 (April 2023)

Supported Rubies: 3.2, 3.1, 3.0

No longer supported Rubies, but might still work: 2.7, 2.6, 2.5, 2.4, 2.3

If you are stuck on an older Ruby version, checkout the latest 0.9 version of this gem.

Gemfile

gem "unicode-emoji"

Usage

Regex

The gem includes a bunch of Emoji regexes, which are compiled out of various Emoji Unicode data sources.

require "unicode/emoji"

string = "String which contains all kinds of emoji:

- Singleton Emoji: 😴
- Textual singleton Emoji with Emoji variation: ▶️
- Emoji with skin tone modifier: 🛌🏽
- Region flag: 🇵🇹
- Sub-Region flag: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
- Keycap sequence: 2️⃣
- Sequence using ZWJ (zero width joiner): 🤾🏽‍♀️

"

string.scan(Unicode::Emoji::REGEX) # => ["😴", "▶️", "🛌🏽", "🇵🇹", "🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿", "2️⃣", "🤾🏽‍♀️"]

Main Regexes

Matches (non-textual) Emoji of all kinds:

Regex	Description	Example Matches	Example Non-Matches
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX	Use this if unsure! Matches (non-textual) singleton Emoji (except for singleton components, like a skin tone modifier without base Emoji) and all kind of recommended Emoji sequences	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️	😴︎, ▶, 🏻, 🇵🇵, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤠‍🤢
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_VALID	Matches (non-textual) singleton Emoji (except for singleton components, like a skin tone modifier without base Emoji) and all kind of valid Emoji sequences	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢	😴︎, ▶, 🏻, 🇵🇵
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_WELL_FORMED	Matches (non-textual) singleton Emoji (except for singleton components, like a skin tone modifier without base Emoji) and all kind of well-formed Emoji sequences	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢, 🇵🇵	😴︎, ▶, 🏻

Picking the Right Emoji Regex

• Usually you just want REGEX (RGI set)
• If you want broader matching (e.g. more sub-regions), choose REGEX_VALID
• If you even want to match for invalid sequences, too, use REGEX_WELL_FORMED

Please see the standard for details.

Property	REGEX (RGI / Recommended)	REGEX_VALID (Valid)	REGEX_WELL_FORMED (Well-formed)
Region "🇵🇹"	Yes	Yes	Yes
Region "🇵🇵"	No	No	Yes
Tag Sequence "🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿"	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tag Sequence "🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿"	No	Yes	Yes
Tag Sequence "😴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁡󠁡󠁿"	No	No	Yes
ZWJ Sequence "🤾🏽‍♀️"	Yes	Yes	Yes
ZWJ Sequence "🤠‍🤢"	No	Yes	Yes

More info about valid vs. recommended Emoji in this blog article on Emojipedia.

Singleton Regexes

Matches only simple one-codepoint (+ optional variation selector) Emoji:

Regex	Description	Example Matches	Example Non-Matches
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_BASIC	Matches (non-textual) singleton Emoji (except for singleton components, like a skin tone modifier without base Emoji), but no sequences at all	😴, ▶️	😴︎, ▶, 🏻, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 🇵🇵,2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_TEXT	Matches only textual singleton Emoji (except for singleton components, like digit 1)	😴︎, ▶	😴, ▶️, 🏻, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 🇵🇵,2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢

Include Textual Emoji

By default, textual Emoji (emoji characters with text variation selector or those that have a default text presentation) will not be included in the default regexes. However, if you wish to match for them too, you can include them in your regex by appending the _INCLUDE_TEXT suffix:

Regex	Description	Example Matches	Example Non-Matches
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_INCLUDE_TEXT	REGEX + REGEX_TEXT	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 😴︎, ▶	🏻, 🇵🇵, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤠‍🤢
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_VALID_INCLUDE_TEXT	REGEX_VALID + REGEX_TEXT	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢, 😴︎, ▶	🏻, 🇵🇵
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_WELL_FORMED_INCLUDE_TEXT	REGEX_WELL_FORMED + REGEX_TEXT	😴, ▶️, 🛌🏽, 🇵🇹, 2️⃣, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁡󠁧󠁢󠁿, 🤾🏽‍♀️, 🤠‍🤢, 🇵🇵, 😴︎, ▶	🏻

Extended Pictographic Regex

Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_PICTO matches single codepoints with the Extended_Pictographic property. For example, it will match ✀ BLACK SAFETY SCISSORS.

Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_PICTO_NO_EMOJI matches single codepoints with the Extended_Pictographic property, but excludes Emoji characters.

See character.construction/picto for a list of all non-Emoji pictographic characters.

Partial Regexes

Matches potential Emoji parts (often, this is not what you want):

Regex	Description	Example Matches	Example Non-Matches
Unicode::Emoji::REGEX_ANY	Matches any Emoji-related codepoint (but no variation selectors, tags, or zero-width joiners). Please not that this will match Emoji-parts rather than complete Emoji, for example, single digits!	😴, ▶, 🏻, 🛌, 🏽, 🇵, 🇹, 2, 🏴, 🤾, ♀, 🤠, 🤢	-

List

Use Unicode::Emoji::LIST or the list method to get a grouped (and ordered) list of Emoji:

Unicode::Emoji.list.keys
# => ["Smileys & Emotion", "People & Body", "Component", "Animals & Nature", "Food & Drink", "Travel & Places", "Activities", "Objects", "Symbols", "Flags"]

Unicode::Emoji.list("Food & Drink").keys
# => ["food-fruit", "food-vegetable", "food-prepared", "food-asian", "food-marine", "food-sweet", "drink", "dishware"]

Unicode::Emoji.list("Food & Drink", "food-asian")
=> ["🍱", "🍘", "🍙", "🍚", "🍛", "🍜", "🍝", "🍠", "🍢", "🍣", "🍤", "🍥", "🥮", "🍡", "🥟", "🥠", "🥡"]

Please note that categories might change with future versions of the Emoji standard. This gem will issue warnings when attempting to retrieve old categories using the #list method.

A list of all Emoji can be found at character.construction.

Properties

Allows you to access the codepoint data form Unicode's emoji-data.txt file:

require "unicode/emoji"

Unicode::Emoji.properties "☝" # => ["Emoji", "Emoji_Modifier_Base"]

Also See

• Unicode® Technical Standard #51
• Emoji categories
• Ruby gem which displays Emoji sequence names
• Part of unicode-x

MIT

• Copyright (C) 2017-2023 Jan Lelis https://janlelis.com. Released under the MIT license.
• Unicode data: https://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#Exhibit1