How to compare Unicode characters that "look alike"?

I fall into a surprising issue.

I loaded a text file in my application and I have some logic which compares the value having µ.

And I realized that even if the texts are same the compare value is false.

 Console.WriteLine("μ".Equals("µ")); // returns false
 Console.WriteLine("µ".Equals("µ")); // return true

In later line the character µ is copy pasted.

However, these might not be the only characters that are like this.

Is there any way in C# to compare the characters which look the same but are actually different?

Because it is really different symbols even they look the same, first is the actual letter and has char code = 956 (0x3BC) and the second is the micro sign and has 181 (0xB5).

References:

• Unicode Character 'GREEK SMALL LETTER MU' (U+03BC)
• Unicode Character 'MICRO SIGN' (U+00B5)

So if you want to compare them and you need them to be equal, you need to handle it manually, or replace one char with another before comparison. Or use the following code:

public void Main()
{
	var s1 = "μ";
	var s2 = "µ";

	Console.WriteLine(s1.Equals(s2));  // false
	Console.WriteLine(RemoveDiacritics(s1).Equals(RemoveDiacritics(s2))); // true 
}

static string RemoveDiacritics(string text) 
{
	var normalizedString = text.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormKC);
	var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

	foreach (var c in normalizedString)
	{
		var unicodeCategory = CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(c);
		if (unicodeCategory != UnicodeCategory.NonSpacingMark)
		{
			stringBuilder.Append(c);
		}
	}

	return stringBuilder.ToString().Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormC);
}

And the Demo

In many cases, you can normalize both of the Unicode characters to a certain normalization form before comparing them, and they should be able to match. Of course, which normalization form you need to use depends on the characters themselves; just because they look alike doesn't necessarily mean they represent the same character. You also need to consider if it's appropriate for your use case — see Jukka K. Korpela's comment.

For this particular situation, if you refer to the links in Tony's answer, you'll see that the table for U+00B5 says:

> Decomposition <compat> GREEK SMALL LETTER MU (U+03BC)

This means U+00B5, the second character in your original comparison, can be decomposed to U+03BC, the first character.

So you'll normalize the characters using full compatibility decomposition, with the normalization forms KC or KD. Here's a quick example I wrote up to demonstrate:

using System;
using System.Text;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        char first = 'μ';
        char second = 'µ';

        // Technically you only need to normalize U+00B5 to obtain U+03BC, but
        // if you're unsure which character is which, you can safely normalize both
        string firstNormalized = first.ToString().Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormKD);
        string secondNormalized = second.ToString().Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormKD);

        Console.WriteLine(first.Equals(second));                     // False
        Console.WriteLine(firstNormalized.Equals(secondNormalized)); // True
    }
}

For details on Unicode normalization and the different normalization forms refer to System.Text.NormalizationForm and the Unicode spec.

They both have different character codes: Refer this for more details

Console.WriteLine((int)'μ');  //956
Console.WriteLine((int)'µ');  //181

Where, 1st one is:

Display     Friendly Code   Decimal Code    Hex Code    Description
====================================================================
μ	        μ	        μ	        μ	    Lowercase Mu
µ           µ         µ          µ      micro sign Mu

For the specific example of μ (mu) and µ (micro sign), the latter has a compatibility decomposition to the former, so you can normalize the string to FormKC or FormKD to convert the micro signs to mus.

However, there are lots of sets of characters that look alike but aren't equivalent under any Unicode normalization form. For example, A (Latin), Α (Greek), and А (Cyrillic). The Unicode website has a confusables.txt file with a list of these, intended to help developers guard against homograph attacks. If necessary, you could parse this file and build a table for “visual normalization” of strings.

Search both characters in a Unicode database and see the difference.

One is the Greek small Letter µ and the other is the Micro Sign µ.

> Name : MICRO SIGN > Block : Latin-1 Supplement > Category : Letter, Lowercase [Ll] > Combine : 0 > BIDI : Left-to-Right [L] > Decomposition : GREEK SMALL LETTER MU (U+03BC) > Mirror : N > Index entries : MICRO SIGN > Upper case : U+039C > Title case : U+039C > Version : Unicode 1.1.0 (June, 1993)

---

> Name : GREEK SMALL LETTER MU > Block : Greek and Coptic > Category : Letter, Lowercase [Ll] > Combine : 0 > BIDI : Left-to-Right [L] > Mirror : N > Upper case : U+039C > Title case : U+039C > See Also : micro sign U+00B5 > Version : Unicode 1.1.0 (June, 1993)

EDIT After the merge of this question with https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20674300/how-to-compare-and-in-c-sharp
Original answer posted:

 "μ".ToUpper().Equals("µ".ToUpper()); //This always return true.

EDIT After reading the comments, yes it is not good to use the above method because it may provide wrong results for some other type of inputs, for this we should use normalize using full compatibility decomposition as mentioned in wiki. (Thanks to the answer posted by BoltClock)

    static string GREEK_SMALL_LETTER_MU = new String(new char[] { '\u03BC' });
    static string MICRO_SIGN = new String(new char[] { '\u00B5' });

    public static void Main()
    {
        string Mus = "µμ";
        string NormalizedString = null;
        int i = 0;
        do
        {
            string OriginalUnicodeString = Mus[i].ToString();
            if (OriginalUnicodeString.Equals(GREEK_SMALL_LETTER_MU))
                Console.WriteLine(" INFORMATIO ABOUT GREEK_SMALL_LETTER_MU");
            else if (OriginalUnicodeString.Equals(MICRO_SIGN))
                Console.WriteLine(" INFORMATIO ABOUT MICRO_SIGN");

            Console.WriteLine();
            ShowHexaDecimal(OriginalUnicodeString);                
            Console.WriteLine("Unicode character category " + CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(Mus[i]));

            NormalizedString = OriginalUnicodeString.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormC);
            Console.Write("Form C Normalized: ");
            ShowHexaDecimal(NormalizedString);               

            NormalizedString = OriginalUnicodeString.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
            Console.Write("Form D Normalized: ");
            ShowHexaDecimal(NormalizedString);               

            NormalizedString = OriginalUnicodeString.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormKC);
            Console.Write("Form KC Normalized: ");
            ShowHexaDecimal(NormalizedString);                

            NormalizedString = OriginalUnicodeString.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormKD);
            Console.Write("Form KD Normalized: ");
            ShowHexaDecimal(NormalizedString);                
            Console.WriteLine("_______________________________________________________________");
            i++;
        } while (i < 2);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static void ShowHexaDecimal(string UnicodeString)
    {
        Console.Write("Hexa-Decimal Characters of " + UnicodeString + "  are ");
        foreach (short x in UnicodeString.ToCharArray())
        {
            Console.Write("{0:X4} ", x);
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
    }

Output

INFORMATIO ABOUT MICRO_SIGN    
Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 00B5
Unicode character category LowercaseLetter
Form C Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 00B5
Form D Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 00B5
Form KC Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
Form KD Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
 ________________________________________________________________
 INFORMATIO ABOUT GREEK_SMALL_LETTER_MU    
Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
Unicode character category LowercaseLetter
Form C Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
Form D Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
Form KC Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
Form KD Normalized: Hexa-Decimal Characters of µ  are 03BC
 ________________________________________________________________

While reading information in Unicode_equivalence I found > The choice of equivalence criteria can affect search results. For instance some typographic ligatures like U+FB03 (ffi), ..... so a search for U+0066 (f) as substring would succeed in an NFKC normalization of U+FB03 but not in NFC normalization of U+FB03.

So to compare equivalence we should normally use FormKC i.e. NFKC normalization or FormKD i.e NFKD normalization.
I was little curious to know more about all the Unicode characters so I made sample which would iterate over all the Unicode character in UTF-16 and I got some results I want to discuss

• Information about characters whose FormC and FormD normalized values were not equivalent
  Total: 12,118
Character (int value): 192-197, 199-207, 209-214, 217-221, 224-253, ..... 44032-55203

• Information about characters whose FormKC and FormKD normalized values were not equivalent
  Total: 12,245
Character (int value): 192-197, 199-207, 209-214, 217-221, 224-228, ..... 44032-55203, 64420-64421, 64432-64433, 64490-64507, 64512-64516, 64612-64617, 64663-64667, 64735-64736, 65153-65164, 65269-65274

• All the character whose FormC and FormD normalized value were not equivalent, there FormKC and FormKD normalized values were also not equivalent except these characters
  Characters: 901 '΅', 8129 '῁', 8141 '῍', 8142 '῎', 8143 '῏', 8157 '῝', 8158 '῞'
, 8159 '῟', 8173 '῭', 8174 '΅'

• Extra character whose FormKC and FormKD normalized value were not equivalent, but there FormC and FormD normalized values were equivalent
  Total: 119
  Characters: 452 'DŽ' 453 'Dž' 454 'dž' 12814 '㈎' 12815 '㈏' 12816 '㈐' 12817 '㈑' 12818 '㈒' 12819 '㈓' 12820 '㈔' 12821 '㈕', 12822 '㈖' 12823 '㈗' 12824 '㈘' 12825 '㈙' 12826 '㈚' 12827 '㈛' 12828 '㈜' 12829 '㈝' 12830 '㈞' 12910 '㉮' 12911 '㉯' 12912 '㉰' 12913 '㉱' 12914 '㉲' 12915 '㉳' 12916 '㉴' 12917 '㉵' 12918 '㉶' 12919 '㉷' 12920 '㉸' 12921 '㉹' 12922 '㉺' 12923 '㉻' 12924 '㉼' 12925 '㉽' 12926 '㉾' 13056 '㌀' 13058 '㌂' 13060 '㌄' 13063 '㌇' 13070 '㌎' 13071 '㌏' 13072 '㌐' 13073 '㌑' 13075 '㌓' 13077 '㌕' 13080 '㌘' 13081 '㌙' 13082 '㌚' 13086 '㌞' 13089 '㌡' 13092 '㌤' 13093 '㌥' 13094 '㌦' 13099 '㌫' 13100 '㌬' 13101 '㌭' 13102 '㌮' 13103 '㌯' 13104 '㌰' 13105 '㌱' 13106 '㌲' 13108 '㌴' 13111 '㌷' 13112 '㌸' 13114 '㌺' 13115 '㌻' 13116 '㌼' 13117 '㌽' 13118 '㌾' 13120 '㍀' 13130 '㍊' 13131 '㍋' 13132 '㍌' 13134 '㍎' 13139 '㍓' 13140 '㍔' 13142 '㍖' .......... ﺋ' 65164 'ﺌ' 65269 'ﻵ' 65270 'ﻶ' 65271 'ﻷ' 65272 'ﻸ' 65273 'ﻹ' 65274'

• There are some characters which can not be normalized, they throw ArgumentException if tried
  Total:2081 Characters(int value): 55296-57343, 64976-65007, 65534

This links can be really helpful to understand what rules govern for Unicode equivalence

1. Unicode_equivalence
2. Unicode_compatibility_characters

Most likely, there are two different character codes that make (visibly) the same character. While technically not equal, they look equal. Have a look at the character table and see whether there are multiple instances of that character. Or print out the character code of the two chars in your code.

You ask "how to compare them" but you don't tell us what you want to do.

There are at least two main ways to compare them:

Either you compare them directly as you are and they are different

Or you use Unicode Compatibility Normalization if your need is for a comparison that finds them to match.

There could be a problem though because Unicode compatibility normalization will make many other characters compare equal. If you want only these two characters to be treated as alike you should roll your own normalization or comparison functions.

For a more specific solution we need to know your specific problem. What is the context under which you came across this problem?

If I would like to be pedantic, I would say that your question doesn't make sense, but since we are approaching christmas and the birds are singing, I'll proceed with this.

First off, the 2 entities that you are trying to compare are glyphs, a glyph is part of a set of glyphs provided by what is usually know as a "font", the thing that usually comes in a ttf, otf or whatever file format you are using.

The glyphs are a representation of a given symbol, and since they are a representation that depends on a specific set, you can't just expect to have 2 similar or even "better" identical symbols, it's a phrase that doesn't make sense if you consider the context, you should at least specify what font or set of glyphs you are considering when you formulate a question like this.

What is usually used to solve a problem similar to the one that you are encountering, it's an OCR, essentially a software that recognize and compares glyphs, If C# provides an OCR by default I don't know that, but it's generally a really bad idea if you don't really need an OCR and you know what to do with it.

You can possibly end up interpreting a physics book as an ancient greek book without mentioning the fact that OCR are generally expensive in terms of resources.

There is a reason why those characters are localized the way they are localized, just don't do that.

It's possible to draw both of chars with the same font style and size with DrawString method. After two bitmaps with symbols has been generated, it's possible to compare them pixel by pixel.

Advantage of this method is that you can compare not only absolute equal charcters, but similar too (with definite tolerance).