I am trying to render a unicode treble clef using the HTML5 canvas element. When using the correct character code (specifically 1D120), it renders fine in HTML, but when I try to use it inside of a canvas a weird character appears

The following code is in my javascript file which works its magic on the canvas...

var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var context = canvas.getContext('2d');

context.font = "48px serif";
context.strokeText("\u1D120", 10, 50);

<h1>&#x1D120;</h1>

<canvas id="canvas" width="100" height="100">
</canvas>

I am trying to render a unicode treble clef using the HTML5 canvas element. When using the correct character code (specifically 1D120), it renders fine in HTML, but when I try to use it inside of a canvas a weird character appears

The following code is in my javascript file which works its magic on the canvas...

var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var context = canvas.getContext('2d');

context.font = "48px serif";
context.strokeText("\u1D120", 10, 50);

<h1>&#x1D120;</h1>

<canvas id="canvas" width="100" height="100">
</canvas>

Unfortunately I can't put a picture of the character because my rep is too low as of yet.

Any insight into what might be causing this problem is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

• javascript
• html
• canvas
• unicode
• html5-canvas

• JavaScript gets weird when you're trying to use Unicode characters beyond the range representable with 16 bits. – Pointy Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 22:37
• 1 Try this: "\uD834\uDD20" (explanation ing) – Pointy Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 22:40
• 1 For future reference: fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1d120/index.htm, this sequence is actually in there. – Tomalak Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 22:47

2 Answers 2

Enclose the hex value inside {}, like so:

context.strokeText("\u{1D120}", 10, 50);

JavaScript strings use UTF-16 encoding. Your character requires a two-part escape because it's a 3-byte UTF-8 sequence codepoint that requires 2 UTF-16 characters.

Stolen from a blog post by somebody smarter than me is this handy function:

function toUTF16(codePoint) {
    var TEN_BITS = parseInt('1111111111', 2);
    function u(codeUnit) {
        return '\\u'+codeUnit.toString(16).toUpperCase();
    }

    if (codePoint <= 0xFFFF) {
        return u(codePoint);
    }
    codePoint -= 0x10000;

    // Shift right to get to most significant 10 bits
    var leadSurrogate = 0xD800 + (codePoint >> 10);

    // Mask to get least significant 10 bits
    var tailSurrogate = 0xDC00 + (codePoint & TEN_BITS);

    return u(leadSurrogate) + u(tailSurrogate);
}

When you invoke that with your code:

var treble = toUTF16(0x1D120);

you get back "\uD834\uDD20".

Thanks again to Dr. Axel Rauschmayer for the code above — read the excellent linked blog post for more information.