Let’s start with two exotic strings (console output is in the code comments):

NSString* apples = NSGetFrenchWord();
NSString* oranges = NSGetFrenchWord();

NSLog(@"apples == '%@'", apples); 
//apples == 'café'
NSLog(@"oranges == '%@'", oranges); 
//oranges == 'café'

They look identical, but looks can be deceiving.

NSLog(@"isEqual? %@", [apples isEqual:oranges] ? @"YES" : @"NO");
//isEqual? NO
NSLog(@"[apples length] == %lu", [apples length]);
//[apples length] == 4
NSLog(@"[oranges length] == %lu", [oranges length]);
//[oranges length] == 5

But if you were to sort them they should be the same, right?

NSLog(@"NSOrderedSame? %@", [apples compare:oranges] == NSOrderedSame ? @"YES" : @"NO");
//NSOrderedSame? YES

Well at least sorting works. Let’s inspect the strings one character at a time.

NSString* CodePoints(NSString* str)
{
    NSMutableString* codePoints = [NSMutableString string];
    for(NSUInteger i = 0; i < [str length]; ++i){
        long ch = (long)[str characterAtIndex:i];
        [codePoints appendFormat:@"%0.4lX ", ch];
    }
    return codePoints;
}

NSLog(@"apples == %@", CodePoints(apples));
//apples == 0063 0061 0066 00E9
NSLog(@"oranges == %@", CodePoints(oranges));
//oranges == 0063 0061 0066 0065 0301

So they are, in fact, different strings.

If you were to look up the above Unicode characters (a.k.a code points) you would find that:

  • 0063 is ‘c’
  • 0061 is ‘a’
  • 0066 is ‘f’
  • 0065 is ‘e’
  • 00E9 is ‘é’ (LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE)
  • 0301 is ‘´’ (COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT)

There are at least two ways to represent the glyph ‘é’ in Unicode. One way is with the single code point 00E9. The other is with two code points: an ‘e’ code point (0065) followed by a combining acute accent code point (0301). Unicode sort of works like ASCII, but not quite.

This is where Unicode normalization/equivalence comes into play. “Normalizing” a Unicode string simply involves taking all the glyphs that look the same and giving them the same code point sequence. You can “compose” all the glyphs, which will translate the two code points 0065 0301 into a single code point 00E9. You can also “decompose” all the glyphs, which will do the opposite. There are four types of Unicode normalization, and NSString provides methods for all of them:

Mad props to Simon for the tip.