_   _           ___                _ _ 
            | | (_)         |__ \              (_|_)
 _ __   __ _| |_ ___   _____   ) |__ _ ___  ___ _ _
| '_ \ / _` | __| \ \ / / _ \ / // _` / __|/ __| | |
| | | | (_| | |_| |\ V /  __// /| (_| \__ \ (__| | |
|_| |_|\__,_|\__|_| \_/ \___|____\__,_|___/\___|_|_|

node-native2ascii is a Node.js implementation of Java's Native-to-ASCII Converter.

Install

Install using npm:

npm install --save node-native2ascii

Or, to be able to access the native2ascii command from anywhere:

npm install --global node-native2ascii

Usage

API

native2ascii(input[, options])

Converts characters within input so that it can be encoded in ASCII by using Unicode escapes ("\uxxxx" notation) for all characters that are not part of the ASCII character set.

This can be useful when dealing with .properties files and characters that are not in the ISO-8859-1 character set.

The reverse option can be specified to reverse the conversion and instead convert Unicode escapes to their corresponding Unicode characters.

Characters within the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) as well as surrogate pairs for characters outside BMP are supported.

Options

| Option | Type | Default | Description | |-----------|-----------|---------|-------------------------------------| | reverse | boolean | false | Whether the reverse the conversion. |

Examples

import { native2ascii } from "node-native2ascii";

native2ascii("I ♥ Unicode!");
//=> "I \\u2665 Unicode!"
native2ascii("𠮷𠮾");
//=> "\\ud842\\udfb7\\ud842\\udfbe"

native2ascii("I \\u2665 Unicode!", { reverse: true });
//=> "I ♥ Unicode!"
native2ascii("\\ud842\\udfb7\\ud842\\udfbe", { reverse: true });
//=> "𠮷𠮾"

CLI

Usage: native2ascii [options] [input-file] [output-file]

Options:
  -e, --encoding <encoding>  specify encoding to use (default: "utf8")
  -r, --reverse              perform reverse conversion (default: false)
  -V, --version              output the version number
  -h, --help                 display help for command

Converts a file that is encoded to any character encoding that is supported by Node.js (which can be controlled via the encoding command line option) to a file encoded in ASCII, using Unicode escapes ("\uxxxx" notation) for all characters that are not part of the ASCII character set.

This can be useful when dealing with .properties files and characters that are not in the ISO-8859-1 character set.

The reverse command line option can be specified to reverse the conversion and instead convert Unicode escapes to their corresponding Unicode characters.

If the output-file command line argument is not specified, standard output is used for output. Additionally, if the input-file command line argument is not specified, standard input is used for input.

Examples

Convert a file encoded using UTF-8 into a file encoded using ASCII, Unicode escaping characters not in the ASCII character set:

# Using file command line arguments:
native2ascii utf8.properties ascii.properties
# Using STDIN and STDOUT:
cat utf8.properties | native2ascii > ascii.properties

Convert a file encoded using ASCII into a file encoded using UTF-8, unescaping any Unicode escapes:

# Using file command line arguments:
native2ascii --reverse ascii.properties utf8.properties
# Using STDIN and STDOUT:
cat ascii.properties | native2ascii --reverse > utf8.properties

Related

• escape-unicode
• properties-store
• unescape-unicode

Bugs

If you have any problems with this package or would like to see changes currently in development, you can do so here.

Contributors

If you want to contribute, you're a legend! Information on how you can do so can be found in CONTRIBUTING.md. We want your suggestions and pull requests!

A list of all contributors can be found in AUTHORS.md.

License

Copyright © 2025 neocotic

See LICENSE.md for more information on our MIT license.