String.fromCharCode()
The static String.fromCharCode()
method returns a string
created from the specified sequence of UTF-16 code units.
Syntax
String.fromCharCode(num1)
String.fromCharCode(num1, num2)
String.fromCharCode(num1, num2, ..., numN)
Parameters
num1, ..., numN
-
A sequence of numbers that are UTF-16 code units. The range is between
0
and65535
(0xFFFF
). Numbers greater than0xFFFF
are truncated. No validity checks are performed.
Return value
A string of length N
consisting of the
N
specified UTF-16 code units.
Description
This method returns a string and not a String
object.
Because fromCharCode()
is a static method of String
, you
always use it as String.fromCharCode()
, rather than as a method of a
String
object you created.
Returning supplementary characters
In UTF-16, the most common characters can be represented by a single 16-bit value (i.e.
a code unit). However, this set of characters, known as the Base Multilingual Plane
(BMP), is only 1/17th of the total addressable Unicode
code points. The remaining code points, in the range of 65536
(0x010000
) to 1114111
(0x10FFFF
) are known as
supplementary characters. In UTF-16, supplementary characters are represented by two
16-bit code units, known as surrogates, that were reserved for this purpose. A valid
combination of two surrogates used to represent a supplementary character is known as a
surrogate pair.
Because fromCharCode()
only works with 16-bit values (same as the
\u
escape sequence), a surrogate pair is required in order to return a
supplementary character. For example, both
String.fromCharCode(0xD83C, 0xDF03)
and \uD83C\uDF03
return
code point U+1F303
"Night with Stars".
While there is a mathematical relationship between the supplementary code point value
(e.g. 0x1F303
) and both surrogate values that represent it
(e.g., 0xD83C
and 0xDF03
), it does require an extra step to
either calculate or look up the surrogate pair values every time a supplementary code
point is to be used. For this reason, it's more convenient to use
String.fromCodePoint()
(part of the ES2015 standard), which allows for
returning supplementary characters based on their actual code point value. For example,
String.fromCodePoint(0x1F303)
returns code point U+1F303
"Night with Stars".
Examples
Using fromCharCode()
BMP characters, in UTF-16, use a single code unit:
String.fromCharCode(65, 66, 67); // returns "ABC"
String.fromCharCode(0x2014); // returns "—"
String.fromCharCode(0x12014); // also returns "—"; the digit 1 is truncated and ignored
String.fromCharCode(8212); // also returns "—"; 8212 is the decimal form of 0x2014
Supplementary characters, in UTF-16, require two code units (i.e. a surrogate pair):
String.fromCharCode(0xD83C, 0xDF03); // Code Point U+1F303 "Night with
String.fromCharCode(55356, 57091); // Stars" == "\uD83C\uDF03"
String.fromCharCode(0xD834, 0xDF06, 0x61, 0xD834, 0xDF07); // "\uD834\uDF06a\uD834\uDF07"
Specifications
Specification |
---|
ECMAScript Language Specification # sec-string.fromcharcode |
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