This library will find all emoji in an input string and return information about each emoji character. It supports emoji with skin tone modifiers, as well as the composite emoji that are made up of multiple people.

The current version supports Emoji version 15.1 (Sept 2023)

You can see a catalog of the emoji data here:

• https://unicode.org/Public/emoji/15.1/emoji-test.txt
• http://projects.iamcal.com/emoji-data/table.htm

composer require p3k/emoji-detector

Or include src/Emoji.php in your project, and make sure the map.json and regexp.json files are available in the same folder as Emoji.php. You don't need any of the other files for use in your own projects.

$input = "Hello 👍🏼 World 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦";
$emoji = Emoji\detect_emoji($input);

print_r($emoji);

The function returns an array with details about each emoji found in the string.

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [emoji] => 👍🏼
            [short_name] =>  1
            [num_points] => 2
            [points_hex] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 1F44D
                    [1] => 1F3FC
                )
            [hex_str] => 1F44D-1F3FC
            [skin_tone] => skin-tone-3
            [byte_offset] => 6
            [grapheme_offset] => 6
        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            [emoji] => 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦
            [short_name] => man-woman-boy-boy
            [num_points] => 7
            [points_hex] => Array
                (
                    [0] => 1F468
                    [1] => 200D
                    [2] => 1F469
                    [3] => 200D
                    [4] => 1F466
                    [5] => 200D
                    [6] => 1F466
                )
            [hex_str] => 1F468-200D-1F469-200D-1F466-200D-1F466
            [skin_tone] =>
            [byte_offset] => 21
            [grapheme_offset] => 14
        )
)

• emoji - The emoji sequence found, as the original byte sequence. You can output this to show the original emoji.
• short_name - The short name of the emoji, as defined by Slack's emoji data.
• num_points - The number of unicode code points that this emoji is composed of.
• points_hex - An array of each unicode code point that makes up this emoji. These are returned as hex strings. This will also include "invisible" characters such as the ZWJ character and skin tone modifiers.
• hex_str - A list of all unicode code points in their hex form separated by hyphens. This string is present in the Slack emoji data array.
• skin_tone - If a skin tone modifier was used in the emoji, this field indicates which skin tone, since the short_name will not include the skin tone.
• byte_offset - The position of the emoji in the string in bytes, used with the plain str* functions
• grapheme_offset - The position of the emoji in the string, counting each emoji as 1 char, used with the grapheme_* functions

You can use the grapheme_* functions to extract parts of the string using the grapheme_offset position returned. For example:

$string = "Trešnja 🍒";
$emoji = Emoji\detect_emoji($string);
echo '.'.grapheme_substr($string, 0, $emoji[0]['grapheme_offset']).".\n";
echo '.'.substr($string, 0, $emoji[0]['byte_offset']).".\n";
// Both output ".Trešnja ."

$string = Emoji\replace_emoji('I like 🌮 and 🌯', ':', ':');
echo $string;
// I like :taco: and :burrito:

Since simply counting the number of unicode characters in a string does not tell you how many visible emoji are in the string, determining whether a single character is an emoji is more involved. This function will return the emoji data only if the string contains a single emoji character, and false otherwise.

$emoji = Emoji\is_single_emoji('👨‍👩‍👦‍👦');
print_r($emoji);

Array
(
    [emoji] => 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦
    [short_name] => man-woman-boy-boy
    [num_points] => 7
    [points_hex] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1F468
            [1] => 200D
            [2] => 1F469
            [3] => 200D
            [4] => 1F466
            [5] => 200D
            [6] => 1F466
        )

    [hex_str] => 1F468-200D-1F469-200D-1F466-200D-1F466
    [skin_tone] =>
    [byte_offset] => 0
    [grapheme_offset] => 0
)

$emoji = Emoji\is_single_emoji('😻🐈');
// false

You can remove all emoji from a string with this function, optionally removing trailing spaces.

$string = "I like 🌮 and 🌯";
echo Emoji\remove_emoji($string);
// "I like  and "
echo Emoji\remove_emoji($string, ['collapse' => true]);
// "I like and";

When a new emoji set is released, this library will need to be updated with the new unicode points and names. The source of the emoji data is iamcal/emoji-data, so first check there for the latest updates. You can build the new source files this library uses with the following command:

composer build

A comprehensive set of tests is available to ensure things are working as expected, including tests for the new emoji added in new emoji versions. You can run the tests with the following command:

composer test

Made with ❤️ by Aaron Parecki.

Copyright 2017-2024 by Aaron Parecki. Available under the MIT license.

Emoji data sourced from iamcal/emoji-data under the MIT license.

Emoji parsing regex sourced from EmojiOne under the MIT license.