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Country Code to Flag Emoji

Jorik on April 09, 2021

Instead of showing boring country codes like US, CH, NL, it is much nicer to show the flag emojis, πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­ and πŸ‡³πŸ‡±, right? This isn't hard to do with ...
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Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ • Edited

Nice. I'm gonna save a 1-liner Gist for future use:

const getFlagEmoji = countryCode=>String.fromCodePoint(...[...countryCode.toUpperCase()].map(x=>0x1f1a5+x.charCodeAt()))
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Jorik

Nice compact improvement! Although I would also suggest optimising for readability :-)

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Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ

I did. This one was too much... :P

const getFlag=c=>String.fromCodePoint(...[...c.toUpperCase()].map(x=>0x1f1a5+x.charCodeAt()))
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jorik profile image
Jorik • Edited

You inspired me to optimise the example function in the article to have less redundant code. :-)

An alternative implementation could use the replace method to replace each character.

function getFlagEmoji(countryCode) {
  return countryCode.toUpperCase().replace(/./g, char => 
      String.fromCodePoint(127397 + char.charCodeAt())
  );
}
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Jacob Evans

This turned into a CodeWars challenge lol

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alia5 profile image
Peter Repukat

Combined both of them, and I like this best. lol

(c)=>c.replace(/./g,(ch)=>String.fromCodePoint(0x1f1a5+ch.toUpperCase().charCodeAt()))
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Andrew Bone • Edited

One problem with this approach is it leaves you at the mercy of your OS (and even browser).

In this image I'm running the same fiddle on the same OS (windows 10) but in different browsers (the top one is chrome the bottom is firefox).

Compare Chrome and Firefox

That all being said it's a nice way to keep things looking right for the OS. And a great way to keep code light.

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Ferdinand

Thank you, very nice! I just wanted to share a performance improvement:

function getFlagEmoji(countryCode) {
  return [...countryCode.toUpperCase()].map(char => 
      String.fromCodePoint(127397 + char.charCodeAt())
  ).reduce((a, b) => `${a}${b}`);
}
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From the benchmark your original code is 12% slower and the version in the comments using replace is 14% slower: jsperf benchmark

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Mostafa Javaheripour

Something weird has happened and this doesn't work in latest chrome (93) on windows.

it works fine on linux both in chrome and firefox though.

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Jorik • Edited

For political reasons, Windows doesn't ship with country flag emojis. It however returns the country code, so that should be a fair alternative.

answers.microsoft.com/en-us/window...

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Thiago

great code, but somehow it does not work on UK

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Rebecca Tuffnell • Edited

It's GB (Great Britain) for the UK

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Andrea Stagi

Great article! I love emojis some time ago and I made a Python module to get flags github.com/lotrekagency/emojiflag

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mojtaba zolfaghari

it is not working on chrome

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Amr • Edited

It works for me!
Just tested it with Firefox, Chrome and Edge, using Archlinux and having Google Noto as default system font

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mojtaba zolfaghari

it is not working on google chrome just shows the flag code

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Ashish Suthar

Using kotlin on Android
gist.github.com/asissuthar/cf8fcf0...

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⚑ Nirazan Basnet ⚑

Nice

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Mohammad Noushad Siddiqi

I'm facing the issue in Bing browser and Google chrome, it's only showing country code instead of it's emoji.

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Muhammed Mamidi

Please your Flag kurdistan