utf8

Available since LÖVE 0.9.2
This module is not supported in earlier versions.

This library provides basic support for handling UTF-8 encoded strings.

It provides all its functions inside the table returned by require("utf8"). This library does not provide any support for Unicode other than handling UTF-8 encoding. Any operation that needs the meaning of a character, such as character classification, is outside its scope.

For detailed usage, see the reference manual.

The utf8.char function does not work correctly in 0.9.2; However, it is not an issue since 0.10.0

Examples

Print text the user writes, and erase it using the UTF-8 module.

local utf8 = require("utf8")
 
function love.load()
    text = "Type away! -- "
 
    -- enable key repeat so backspace can be held down to trigger love.keypressed multiple times.
    love.keyboard.setKeyRepeat(true)
end
 
function love.textinput(t)
    text = text .. t
end
 
function love.keypressed(key)
    if key == "backspace" then
        -- get the byte offset to the last UTF-8 character in the string.
        local byteoffset = utf8.offset(text, -1)
 
        if byteoffset then
            -- remove the last UTF-8 character.
            -- string.sub operates on bytes rather than UTF-8 characters, so we couldn't do string.sub(text, 1, -2).
            text = string.sub(text, 1, byteoffset - 1)
        end
    end
end
 
function love.draw()
    love.graphics.printf(text, 0, 0, love.graphics.getWidth())
end

See Also

• love
• love.textinput