removeUrduDiacritics

⚠️ Version Recommendation: Always install and use the latest version of rtl-text-tools (npm install rtl-text-tools@latest). While this specific feature was introduced in an earlier version, the latest release includes crucial bug fixes, better edge-case handling, and improved legacy browser compatibility. Avoid pinning your project to an old version just to use this function.

Removes Urdu-specific diacritics, including the unique Ghunna mark (٘), along with standard Arabic diacritics (Harakat).

The Ghunna mark (U+06D8) is unique to Urdu and indicates a specific nasal sound. This function strips these marks out to leave the clean, base text, which is highly useful for search indexing, text comparison, and normalizing user input.

⚠️ Important Warning: Do not use this function if you are processing Quranic texts, classical poetry, or children's books where vowel marks and nasalization are strictly required for correct pronunciation and meaning.

📝 Syntax

removeUrduDiacritics(text: string): string

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
text	string	The text containing Urdu/Arabic diacritics to remove.

Returns

• string : Returns the text with all diacritics in the \u064B to \u065F range, as well as the Urdu Ghunna mark (\u06D8), stripped out. Returns the original string unchanged if it is empty, null, or contains no diacritics.

💡 Examples

Basic Usage

import { removeUrduDiacritics } from 'rtl-text-tools';

removeUrduDiacritics("پَاک");         // "پاک" (Fatha removed)
removeUrduDiacritics("اُردو٘");        // "اردو" (Damma and Urdu Ghunna mark removed)
removeUrduDiacritics("ر٘حمان");        // "رحمان" (Ghunna mark removed)
removeUrduDiacritics("بدون اعراب");    // "بدون اعراب" (No diacritics = unchanged)

Search and Text Comparison

When building a search feature for Urdu, users will almost never type diacritics or the Ghunna mark. Stripping these from your database content ensures that searches match regardless of how the text was originally vocalized:

import { removeUrduDiacritics } from 'rtl-text-tools';

const databaseText = "ر٘حمان"; // Vocalized text with Ghunna from a database
const userQuery = "رحمان";     // User typed without diacritics

const normalizedDB = removeUrduDiacritics(databaseText); // "رحمان"
const normalizedQuery = removeUrduDiacritics(userQuery); // "رحمان"

if (normalizedDB === normalizedQuery) {
  console.log("Match found!"); // This will now successfully match
}

🌍 Removed Diacritics (Unicode Range)

This function targets the standard Arabic diacritics block plus the specific Urdu Ghunna mark:

Character	Name	Unicode
ً	Fathatan	\u064B
ٌ	Dammatan	\u064C
ٍ	Kasratan	\u064D
َ	Fatha	\u064E
ُ	Damma	\u064F
ِ	Kasra	\u0650
ّ	Shadda	\u0651
ْ	Sukun	\u0652
(and others)	Small high ligatures, Maddah, etc.	\u0653 - \u065F
٘	Ghunna Mark (Urdu)	\u06D8

⚙️ Technical Details & Compatibility

• Regex Character Class: The function uses a highly efficient regular expression (/[\u064B-\u065F\u06D8]/g) to match the entire range of standard diacritics and the specific Urdu Ghunna mark in a single pass, replacing them with an empty string ''.
• Base Characters Preserved: It strictly targets the combining marks. Base letters (like Alef, Ba, Noon Ghunna, etc.) are completely untouched.
• IE11 Compatibility: It avoids modern string methods and the ES6 u regex flag, ensuring full compatibility with legacy browsers like IE11.
• Safe Execution: If the input is falsy (e.g., null, undefined, or ""), it immediately returns the input without throwing an error.

📜 Version History

• v1.2.0: Added removeUrduDiacritics() as part of the new Urdu language support to clean up text for search and normalization.