Obj-C - Display emoji in UILabel?

Question

I've configured MySQL tables to store emojis with the following:

ALTER TABLE field_data_field_notes MODIFY field_notes_value 
VARCHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

That said, when I return strings to my app and try to display them in a UILabel, they appear like this:

Birthday emoji 🎈

The emoji is a balloon. I've tried the below code to decode it and display the actual emoji, but it doesn't seem to work (e.g. the UILabel still displays the emoji &amp text)? Note, I'm using Drupal and I have the 'Unicode' module enabled, so I imagine this is why the encoded format is &#x1F388.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView*)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(nonnull NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
        
 TimeTableViewCell *cell = (TimeTableViewCell *)[self.subtableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:WeeklyTableIdentifier];
                
                    
                if (cell == nil)
                {
                    NSArray *nib = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"TimeTableViewCell" owner:self options:nil];
                    cell = [nib objectAtIndex:0];
                    
                }
    
    NSString *encodedString =[self.sortedByTime valueForKey:@"notes"][indexPath.row];
    
    NSString *decodedString = [self decodeString:encodedString];
    
                      
    cell.notes.text = decodedString;
    
    }


- (NSString *)decodeString:(NSString *)string {
    // Decode HTML entities
    NSDictionary *entities = @{
        @"&" : @"&",
        @""" : @"\"",
        @"'" : @"'",
        @"&lt;" : @"<",
        @"&gt;" : @">",
        // Add more entity mappings as needed
    };

    NSMutableString *decodedString = [NSMutableString stringWithString:string];
    
    for (NSString *entity in entities) {
        NSString *replacement = [entities objectForKey:entity];
        [decodedString replaceOccurrencesOfString:entity withString:replacement options:NSLiteralSearch range:NSMakeRange(0, [decodedString length])];
    }
    
    // Decode Unicode escape sequences
    NSString *decodedUnicodeString = [decodedString stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"&#x" withString:@"\\U0000"];
    NSData *data = [decodedUnicodeString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSString *decodedEmojiString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSNonLossyASCIIStringEncoding];
    
    return decodedEmojiString ?: decodedString;
}

Here is the code I'm using to save the string to my database:

NSDictionary *notesField = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:self.notesField.text, nil] forKeys:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"value", nil]];
 NSDictionary *notesFieldcontent = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:[NSArray arrayWithObject:notesField] forKey:@"und"];
            
            [self.nodeData setObject:notesFieldcontent forKey:@"field_notes"];
    
      [DIOSNode nodeSave:self.nodeData success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
               
    
      } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
                
                
             
            }];

Answer 1

Found a super simple solution to my question. Posting it here incase anyone else runs into it. My original data string that was returned:

Birthday emoji 🎈

Here's the code I ended up using to make the emoji appear in my UILabel.

ViewController.m

 NSString *htmlEntity = [self.finalTimes valueForKey:@"notes"][indexPath.row];
 NSString *replacementString = [htmlEntity stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"amp;" withString:@""];

      dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
   
               
      NSData *data = [replacementString dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
      NSAttributedString *attributedString = [[NSAttributedString alloc] initWithData:data options:@{NSDocumentTypeDocumentAttribute: NSHTMLTextDocumentType} documentAttributes:nil error:nil];
             
      UIFont *font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Avenir-Oblique" size:11.0];
               UIColor *textColor = [UIColor darkGrayColor]; // Set the correct font name and size
               NSDictionary *attributes = @{NSFontAttributeName: font, NSForegroundColorAttributeName: textColor};
               NSMutableAttributedString *styledAttributedString = [[NSMutableAttributedString alloc] initWithAttributedString:attributedString];
               [styledAttributedString addAttributes:attributes range:NSMakeRange(0, styledAttributedString.length)];

               cell.notes.attributedText = styledAttributedString;
               
               
              });