Convert Unicode char to closest (most similar) char in ASCII (.NET)

Question

How do I to convert different Unicode characters to their closest ASCII equivalents? Like Ä -> A. I googled but didn't find any suitable solution. The trick Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("Ä")[0] didn't work. (Result was ?).

I found that there is a class Encoder that has a Fallback property that is exactly for cases when char can't be converted, but implementations (EncoderReplacementFallback) are stupid and convert to ?.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

If it is just removing of the diacritical marks, then head to this answer:

static string RemoveDiacritics(string stIn) {
  string stFormD = stIn.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

  for(int ich = 0; ich < stFormD.Length; ich++) {
    UnicodeCategory uc = CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(stFormD[ich]);
    if(uc != UnicodeCategory.NonSpacingMark) {
      sb.Append(stFormD[ich]);
    }
  }

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