Here is a symbol of an eight note: ♪
Its two-byte hex representation is 0x266A Show archive.org snapshot .
This card describes how to create a string with this symbol in various languages.
All languages
Since our tool chain (editors, languages, databases, browsers) is UTF-8 aware (or at least doesn't mangle bytes), you can usually get away with just pasting the symbol verbatim:
note = '♪'
This is great for shapes that are easily recognized by your fellow programmers.
It's not so great for non-distinct shapes like non-breaking spaces or hyphens of various lengths. For this, use the ways below.
Javascript, Coffeescript
Use the \u escape sequence:
note = '\u266A'
You can use Unicode escape sequences in both single and double quotes.
HTML
Use an entity:
♪
Ruby 1.9+
In modern Rubies you can use the \u escape sequence:
note = "\u266A"
Note that you must use double quotes. Unicode escape sequences are not parsed in a string with single quotes.
Ruby 1.8.7
There are no \u escape sequences in Ruby 1.8.7.
You either need to paste the '♪' symbol verbatim, or you can create a helper method that creates a string from an UTF-16 hex sequence:
class String
def self.from_utf16_hex(sequence)
parts = sequence.scan(/..../)
parts = parts.map { |part| part.to_i(16) }
parts.pack('U*')
end
end
This lets you say:
String.from_utf16_hex('266a') # => '♪'
String.from_utf16_hex('266a266a') # => '♪♪'
This also works in modern Ruby versions.
