Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#1

Post by program » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

I've written Mojibake because I don't like the other Unicode libraries for Unicode support.

It consists of only two amalgamation files: mojibake.h and mojibake.c. I've added all the most important Unicode algorithms, such as normalization, case conversion, segmentation, bidirectional text, collation, confusable, and others.

I regularly test it in these OSes: Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Windows 11.

You can find a WASM demo on that site of all the public API functions and the documentation. If you want to participate, feel free to do it. Any kind of help is welcome. Check the CONTRIBUTING.md and API.md files in the GitHub repository for instructions on how to do it.

Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C
mojibake.zaerl.com

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#2

Post by digg99 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:00 AM UTC

Love the amalgamation approach—the C/C++ ecosystem desperately needs cleaner, lightweight Unicode support without pulling in massive dependencies... thanks for sharing

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#3

Post by avadodin » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:23 AM UTC

I have come to the conclusion that the only Unicode support needed in C is supporting pointers to char and arrays but lightweight C libraries are always welcome.

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#4

Post by lifthrasiir » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:53 AM UTC

How does it compare with utf8proc [1]? I'm aware that Mojibake does a bit more than utf8proc (e.g. bi-di) but that seems marginal to me.

[1] https://juliastrings.github.io/utf8proc/

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#5

Post by tjwebbnorfolk » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 12:57 AM UTC

what's performance like compared to python ftfy module?

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#6

Post by adrianN » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

avadodin wrote: post #3

I have come to the conclusion that the only Unicode support needed in C is supporting pointers to char and arrays but lightweight C libraries are always welcome.

I guess you never have to deal with text if you think that’s enough? What kind of software do you write in C?

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#7

Post by CharlesW » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

Not to bikeshed, but isn't the word "mojibake" synonymous with "when character encoding breaks"?

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#8

Post by RIMR » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 2:10 AM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #7

Not to bikeshed, but isn't the word "mojibake" synonymous with "when character encoding breaks"?

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#9

Post by wodenokoto » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #7

Not to bikeshed, but isn't the word "mojibake" synonymous with "when character encoding breaks"?

I wouldn’t call it synonymous as much as I’d call it its literal meaning.

https://jisho.org/word/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97%E5%8C%96%E3%81%91

Re: Show HN: Mojibake – A low-level Unicode library written in C

#10

Post by i18nagentai » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 3:42 AM UTC

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