Re: [xsl] Getting the Base Character of Character with Diacritic

[Abel Braaksma <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry for opening an otherwise closed thread, but I thought this of 
interest to the questioner. I just tumbled across this definition while 
researching something else. You can find it in the official XML TR at 
W3C: http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/#NT-CombiningChar.

In addition I thought of using the following as regular expression, when 
you find Michael Key's solution sufficient. It does about the same, but 
I consider it  slightly more readable (opinions may vary ;-)

replace($yourtext, 
'(\p{IsCombiningDiacriticalMarks}|\p{IsCombiningMarksforSymbols})', '')

The following is probably the most-complete definition of chars that can 
be used for combining different characters. Just for the sake of 
completeness, I copy it here (note: this is Unicode 3.1, because the XML 
spec only requires Unicode 3.1 conformance. Codes added in 3.2 and 4.0, 
like x034B-034F, are not in this list):

CombiningChar       ::=       [#x0300-#x0345] | [#x0360-#x0361] | 
[#x0483-#x0486] | [#x0591-#x05A1] | [#x05A3-#x05B9] | [#x05BB-#x05BD] | 
#x05BF | [#x05C1-#x05C2] | #x05C4 | [#x064B-#x0652] | #x0670 | 
[#x06D6-#x06DC] | [#x06DD-#x06DF] | [#x06E0-#x06E4] | [#x06E7-#x06E8] | 
[#x06EA-#x06ED] | [#x0901-#x0903] | #x093C | [#x093E-#x094C] | #x094D | 
[#x0951-#x0954] | [#x0962-#x0963] | [#x0981-#x0983] | #x09BC | #x09BE | 
#x09BF | [#x09C0-#x09C4] | [#x09C7-#x09C8] | [#x09CB-#x09CD] | #x09D7 | 
[#x09E2-#x09E3] | #x0A02 | #x0A3C | #x0A3E | #x0A3F | [#x0A40-#x0A42] | 
[#x0A47-#x0A48] | [#x0A4B-#x0A4D] | [#x0A70-#x0A71] | [#x0A81-#x0A83] | 
#x0ABC | [#x0ABE-#x0AC5] | [#x0AC7-#x0AC9] | [#x0ACB-#x0ACD] | 
[#x0B01-#x0B03] | #x0B3C | [#x0B3E-#x0B43] | [#x0B47-#x0B48] | 
[#x0B4B-#x0B4D] | [#x0B56-#x0B57] | [#x0B82-#x0B83] | [#x0BBE-#x0BC2] | 
[#x0BC6-#x0BC8] | [#x0BCA-#x0BCD] | #x0BD7 | [#x0C01-#x0C03] | 
[#x0C3E-#x0C44] | [#x0C46-#x0C48] | [#x0C4A-#x0C4D] | [#x0C55-#x0C56] | 
[#x0C82-#x0C83] | [#x0CBE-#x0CC4] | [#x0CC6-#x0CC8] | [#x0CCA-#x0CCD] | 
[#x0CD5-#x0CD6] | [#x0D02-#x0D03] | [#x0D3E-#x0D43] | [#x0D46-#x0D48] | 
[#x0D4A-#x0D4D] | #x0D57 | #x0E31 | [#x0E34-#x0E3A] | [#x0E47-#x0E4E] | 
#x0EB1 | [#x0EB4-#x0EB9] | [#x0EBB-#x0EBC] | [#x0EC8-#x0ECD] | 
[#x0F18-#x0F19] | #x0F35 | #x0F37 | #x0F39 | #x0F3E | #x0F3F | 
[#x0F71-#x0F84] | [#x0F86-#x0F8B] | [#x0F90-#x0F95] | #x0F97 | 
[#x0F99-#x0FAD] | [#x0FB1-#x0FB7] | #x0FB9 | [#x20D0-#x20DC] | #x20E1 | 
[#x302A-#x302F] | #x3099 | #x309A

Jeff Sese wrote:
> Thanks Abel, Colin and Sir Mike, for the suggestions; it was what i 
> wanted.
> -- Jeff
>
> Michael Kay wrote:
> > Following up on suggestions from others, if NFKD is supported then the
> > following should work reasonably well for European languages:
> >
> > replace(normalize-unicode($in, 'NFKD'), '[̀-ͯ]', '')
> >
> > or if you prefer