String.prototype.codePointAt()

The codePointAt() method returns a non-negative integer that is the UTF-16 code point value.

Syntax

codePointAt(pos)

Parameters

pos: Position of an element in str to return the code point value from.

Return value

A decimal number representing the code point value of the character at the given pos.

If there is no element at pos, returns undefined.
If the element at pos is a UTF-16 high surrogate, returns the code point of the surrogate pair.
If the element at pos is a UTF-16 low surrogate, returns only the low surrogate code point.

Examples

Using codePointAt()

'ABC'.codePointAt(0)                        // 65
'ABC'.codePointAt(0).toString(16)           // 41

'????'.codePointAt(0)                         // 128525
'\ud83d\ude0d'.codePointAt(0)               // 128525
'\ud83d\ude0d'.codePointAt(0).toString(16)  // 1f60d

'????'.codePointAt(1)                         // 56845
'\ud83d\ude0d'.codePointAt(1)               // 56845
'\ud83d\ude0d'.codePointAt(1).toString(16)  // de0d

'ABC'.codePointAt(42)                       // undefined

Looping with codePointAt()

Because indexing to a pos whose element is a UTF-16 low surrogate, returns only the low surrogate, it's better not to index directly into a UTF-16 string.

Instead, use a for...of statement or an Array's forEach() method (or anything which correctly iterates UTF-16 surrogates) to iterate the string, using codePointAt(0) to get the code point of each element.

for (let codePoint of '\ud83d\udc0e\ud83d\udc71\u2764') {
   console.log(codePoint.codePointAt(0).toString(16))
}
// '1f40e', '1f471', '2764'

Polyfill

The following extends Strings to include the codePointAt() function as specified in ECMAScript 2015 for browsers without native support.

/*! https://mths.be/codepointat v0.2.0 by @mathias */
if (!String.prototype.codePointAt) {
  (function() {
    'use strict'; // needed to support `apply`/`call` with `undefined`/`null`
    var defineProperty = (function() {
      // IE 8 only supports `Object.defineProperty` on DOM elements
      try {
        var object = {};
        var $defineProperty = Object.defineProperty;
        var result = $defineProperty(object, object, object) && $defineProperty;
      } catch(error) {}
      return result;
    }());
    var codePointAt = function(position) {
      if (this == null) {
        throw TypeError();
      }
      var string = String(this);
      var size = string.length;
      // `ToInteger`
      var index = position ? Number(position) : 0;
      if (index != index) { // better `isNaN`
        index = 0;
      }
      // Account for out-of-bounds indices:
      if (index < 0 || index >= size) {
        return undefined;
      }
      // Get the first code unit
      var first = string.charCodeAt(index);
      var second;
      if ( // check if it’s the start of a surrogate pair
        first >= 0xD800 && first <= 0xDBFF && // high surrogate
        size > index + 1 // there is a next code unit
      ) {
        second = string.charCodeAt(index + 1);
        if (second >= 0xDC00 && second <= 0xDFFF) { // low surrogate
          // https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-encoding#surrogate-formulae
          return (first - 0xD800) * 0x400 + second - 0xDC00 + 0x10000;
        }
      }
      return first;
    };
    if (defineProperty) {
      defineProperty(String.prototype, 'codePointAt', {
        'value': codePointAt,
        'configurable': true,
        'writable': true
      });
    } else {
      String.prototype.codePointAt = codePointAt;
    }
  }());
}

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Language Specification (ECMAScript) # sec-string.prototype.codepointat

Browser compatibility

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	WebView Android	Chrome Android	Firefox for Android	Opera Android	Safari on IOS	Samsung Internet
`codePointAt`	41	12	29	No	28	10	41	41	29	28	10	4.0