Unicode Names

Small utility to print Unicode symbol names. The main reference is https://www.unicode.org/Public/UCD/latest/ucd/UnicodeData.txt.

Usage

$> ucn [FLAGS]

Prints Unicode symbols to Stdout. All processing remains local, no external service is triggered.

Flags

-omf.alfred
    use special JSON format ready to be used in http://alfredapp.com
-ofmt.etab (default)
    use Elastic Tabstops (default)
-ofmt.json
    use JSON to print the symbols
-ofmt.tsv
    use tab-separated values

-filter.fuzzy value
    fuzzy filter all symbol names for <value>
-limit value
    limit results to <value> symbols
-filter.partial value
    filter all symbol names for a partial match on <value>
-reverse value
    reverse list of symbols
-filter.starts-with value
    filter all symbol names for the ones which starts-with <value>

-v	print version and exit

The filter flags -filter.*, -limit and -reverse can be given multiple times: they are applied in the order they are provided. See Examples down below.

The output format flags -ofmt.* can be given multiple times: the last one given wins.

Output Formats

The -ofmt.* flags define the output format for the (filtered) Unicode symbols.

Elastic Tabstops

Print (filtered) Unicode symbols as properly aligned text by using the Elastic Tabstop algorithm, see http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/index.html for more information.

The columns are (in order):

• the symbol
• code point number in HEX
• code point in Unicode format (see https://pkg.go.dev/fmt#hdr-Printing)
• HTML entity
• JSON encoded
• the name / description

TSV

Print (filtered) Unicode symbols as tab-separated values.

The columns are (in order):

• the symbol
• code point number in HEX
• code point in Unicode format (see https://pkg.go.dev/fmt#hdr-Printing)
• HTML entity
• JSON encoded
• the name / description

JSON

Print (filtered) Unicode symbols as JSON.

[
  {
    "name": "MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL PI",
    "cp": "U+1D6D1",
    "html": "&#1d6d1;",
    "json": "\\u1d6d1",
    "symbol": "𝛑",
    "www": "https://symbl.cc/en/1d6d1"
  },
  …
]

AlfredApp

AlfredApp is using the JSON formatted output to interactively render the results of a search to its UI. See also the #Extras section.

{
    "items": [
      {
        "title": "𝛑 - MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL PI",
        "subtitle": "U+1D6D1 - &#1d6d1; - https://symbol.cc/en/1d6d1",
        "arg": "𝛑",
        "variables": {
          "cp": "U+1D6D1",
          "html": "&#1d6d1;",
          "json": "\\u1d6d1",
          "symbol": "𝛑",
          "www": "https://symbol.cc/en/1d6d1"
        }
      },
    ...

Examples

Search for the 𝛑 symbol:

$> ucn -filter.partial math -filter.partial "pi" -limit 5

'𝚷'    1d6b7    U+1D6B7    &#1d6b7;    \\u1d6b7    MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL PI
'𝛑'    1d6d1    U+1D6D1    &#1d6d1;    \\u1d6d1    MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL PI
'𝛡'    1d6e1    U+1D6E1    &#1d6e1;    \\u1d6e1    MATHEMATICAL BOLD PI SYMBOL
'𝛱'    1d6f1    U+1D6F1    &#1d6f1;    \\u1d6f1    MATHEMATICAL ITALIC CAPITAL PI
'𝜋'    1d70b    U+1D70B    &#1d70b;    \\u1d70b    MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL PI

Search for "upward arrows":

$> ucn -filter.starts-with "upwards -filter.starts-with "arrow" -limit 5

'͎'    34e     U+034E    &#34e;          \\u34e     COMBINING UPWARDS ARROW BELOW
'↑'    2191    U+2191    ↑       \\u2191    UPWARDS ARROW
'↟'    219f    U+219F    ↟          \\u219f    UPWARDS TWO HEADED ARROW
'↥'    21a5    U+21A5    ↥    \\u21a5    UPWARDS ARROW FROM BAR
'↰'    21b0    U+21B0    ↰           \\u21b0    UPWARDS ARROW WITH TIP LEFTWARDS

Count the number of embedded Unicode symbols:

$>  ucn | wc -l
 288767

Limit the available runes to the first 1000, then filter for "pi":

$> ucn -limit 1000 -filter.starts-with pi

'¶'    b6     U+00B6    ¶     \\ub6     PILCROW SIGN
'Π'    3a0    U+03A0    Π       \\u3a0    GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI
'π'    3c0    U+03C0    π       \\u3c0    GREEK SMALL LETTER PI
'ϖ'    3d6    U+03D6    ϖ    \\u3d6    GREEK PI SYMBOL

First filter "pi" in all symbols, then limit the output to 1000 results:

$> ucn -filter.starts-with pi -limit 1000

'¶'         b6       U+00B6     ¶         \\ub6       PILCROW SIGN
'Π'         3a0      U+03A0     Π           \\u3a0      GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI
'π'         3c0      U+03C0     π           \\u3c0      GREEK SMALL LETTER PI
'ϖ'         3d6      U+03D6     ϖ        \\u3d6      GREEK PI SYMBOL
'Փ'         553      U+0553     ȩ         \\u553      ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER PIWR
'փ'         583      U+0583     ɇ         \\u583      ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER PIWR
...
'🧩'         1f9e9    U+1F9E9    &#1f9e9;       \\u1f9e9    JIGSAW PUZZLE PIECE
'🧷'         1f9f7    U+1F9F7    &#1f9f7;       \\u1f9f7    SAFETY PIN
'🩷'         1fa77    U+1FA77    &#1fa77;       \\u1fa77    PINK HEART
'🪅'         1fa85    U+1FA85    &#1fa85;       \\u1fa85    PINATA
'🪮'         1faae    U+1FAAE    &#1faae;       \\u1faae    HAIR PICK

186 entries in total

Extras

Alfred Workflow "Unicode Names"

Installation:

1. Get AlfredApp + Powerpack - https://www.alfredapp.com
2. Grab the Alfred-Workflow file (a .zip) from the releases page
3. Import it into Alfred.
4. Use it - the default triggers are uc and ucf (fuzzy)

Links

• https://www.unicode.org/charts/
• https://www.unicode.org/charts/About.html#Search
• https://symbol.cc

Related

• https://github.com/deanishe/alfred-unicode

• https://github.com/adamkiss/alfred-utf/

• https://github.com/arp242/uni