Zalgo text in Java?

Question

So I have seen Unicode being exploited to produce a big scary looking mess of characters from a normal input text, better known as Zalgo text. HTML (edit: javascript) seems to do a wonderful job at that. So I was wondering, can same (or something similar) be done in Java? I'm relatively new to it, so I think making a similar generator would be a good exercise.

Answer 1

EDIT to show how to do it in java.

The result is saved in the text file zalgo.txt in unicode format. We save it to a file because your IDE might not know how to display the unicode characters properly if you write it to the outputstream.

  import java.io.BufferedWriter;
  import java.io.File;
  import java.io.FileOutputStream;
  import java.io.IOException;
  import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
  import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
  import java.io.Writer;

  public class Zalgo {

      private static final char[] zalgo_up =
      { '\u030d', /*     Ì?     */'\u030e', /*     ÌŽ     */'\u0304', /*     Ì„     */'\u0305', /*     Ì…     */
          '\u033f', /*     Ì¿     */'\u0311', /*     Ì‘     */'\u0306', /*     ̆     */'\u0310', /*     Ì?     */
          '\u0352', /*     ͒     */'\u0357', /*     ͗     */'\u0351', /*     ͑     */'\u0307', /*     ̇     */
          '\u0308', /*     ̈     */'\u030a', /*     ̊     */'\u0342', /*     ͂     */'\u0343', /*     ̓     */
          '\u0344', /*     ̈Ì?     */'\u034a', /*     ÍŠ     */'\u034b', /*     Í‹     */'\u034c', /*     ÍŒ     */
          '\u0303', /*     ̃     */'\u0302', /*     Ì‚     */'\u030c', /*     ÌŒ     */'\u0350', /*     Í?     */
          '\u0300', /*     Ì€     */'\u0301', /*     Ì?     */'\u030b', /*     Ì‹     */'\u030f', /*     Ì?     */
          '\u0312', /*     ̒     */'\u0313', /*     ̓     */'\u0314', /*     ̔     */'\u033d', /*     ̽     */
          '\u0309', /*     ̉     */'\u0363', /*     ͣ     */'\u0364', /*     ͤ     */'\u0365', /*     ͥ     */
          '\u0366', /*     ͦ     */'\u0367', /*     ͧ     */'\u0368', /*     ͨ     */'\u0369', /*     ͩ     */
          '\u036a', /*     ͪ     */'\u036b', /*     ͫ     */'\u036c', /*     ͬ     */'\u036d', /*     ͭ     */
          '\u036e', /*     ͮ     */'\u036f', /*     ͯ     */'\u033e', /*     ̾     */'\u035b', /*     ͛     */
          '\u0346', /*     ͆     */'\u031a' /*     ̚     */
          } ;

      private static final char[] zalgo_down =
      { '\u0316', /*     ̖     */'\u0317', /*     ̗     */'\u0318', /*     ̘     */'\u0319', /*     ̙     */
          '\u031c', /*     Ìœ     */'\u031d', /*     Ì?     */'\u031e', /*     Ìž     */'\u031f', /*     ÌŸ     */
          '\u0320', /*     Ì      */'\u0324', /*     ̤     */'\u0325', /*     Ì¥     */'\u0326', /*     ̦     */
          '\u0329', /*     ̩     */'\u032a', /*     ̪     */'\u032b', /*     ̫     */'\u032c', /*     ̬     */
          '\u032d', /*     ̭     */'\u032e', /*     ̮     */'\u032f', /*     ̯     */'\u0330', /*     ̰     */
          '\u0331', /*     ̱     */'\u0332', /*     ̲     */'\u0333', /*     ̳     */'\u0339', /*     ̹     */
          '\u033a', /*     ̺     */'\u033b', /*     ̻     */'\u033c', /*     ̼     */'\u0345', /*     ͅ     */
          '\u0347', /*     ͇     */'\u0348', /*     ͈     */'\u0349', /*     ͉     */'\u034d', /*     Í?     */
          '\u034e', /*     ÍŽ     */'\u0353', /*     Í“     */'\u0354', /*     Í”     */'\u0355', /*     Í•     */
          '\u0356', /*     ͖     */'\u0359', /*     ͙     */'\u035a', /*     ͚     */'\u0323' /*     ̣     */
          } ;

      //those always stay in the middle
      private static final char[] zalgo_mid =
      { '\u0315', /*     Ì•     */'\u031b', /*     Ì›     */'\u0340', /*     Ì€     */'\u0341', /*     Ì?     */
          '\u0358', /*     ͘     */'\u0321', /*     ̡     */'\u0322', /*     ̢     */'\u0327', /*     ̧     */
          '\u0328', /*     ̨     */'\u0334', /*     ̴     */'\u0335', /*     ̵     */'\u0336', /*     ̶     */
          '\u034f', /*     Í?     */'\u035c', /*     Íœ     */'\u035d', /*     Í?     */'\u035e', /*     Íž     */
          '\u035f', /*     ÍŸ     */'\u0360', /*     Í      */'\u0362', /*     Í¢     */'\u0338', /*     ̸     */
          '\u0337', /*     Ì·     */'\u0361', /*     Í¡     */'\u0489' /*     Ò‰_     */
          } ;


      // rand funcs
      //---------------------------------------------------

      //gets an int between 0 and max

      private static int rand(int max) {
          return (int)Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
      }

      //gets a random char from a zalgo char table

      private static char rand_zalgo(char[] array) {
          int ind = (int)Math.floor(Math.random() * array.length);
          return array[ind];
      }

      //hide show element
      //lookup char to know if its a zalgo char or not

      private static boolean is_zalgo_char(char c) {
          for (int i = 0; i < zalgo_up.length; i++)
              if (c == zalgo_up[i])
                  return true;
          for (int i = 0; i < zalgo_down.length; i++)
              if (c == zalgo_down[i])
                  return true;
          for (int i = 0; i < zalgo_mid.length; i++)
              if (c == zalgo_mid[i])
                  return true;
          return false;
      }

      public static String goZalgo(String iText, boolean zalgo_opt_mini, boolean zalgo_opt_normal, boolean up,
                                   boolean down, boolean mid) {
          String zalgoTxt = "";

          for (int i = 0; i < iText.length(); i++) {
              if (is_zalgo_char(iText.charAt(i)))
                  continue;

              int num_up;
              int num_mid;
              int num_down;

              //add the normal character
              zalgoTxt += iText.charAt(i);

              //options
              if (zalgo_opt_mini) {
                  num_up = rand(8);
                  num_mid = rand(2);
                  num_down = rand(8);
              } else if (zalgo_opt_normal) {
                  num_up = rand(16) / 2 + 1;
                  num_mid = rand(6) / 2;
                  num_down = rand(16) / 2 + 1;
              } else //maxi
              {
                  num_up = rand(64) / 4 + 3;
                  num_mid = rand(16) / 4 + 1;
                  num_down = rand(64) / 4 + 3;
              }

              if (up)
                  for (int j = 0; j < num_up; j++)
                      zalgoTxt += rand_zalgo(zalgo_up);
              if (mid)
                  for (int j = 0; j < num_mid; j++)
                      zalgoTxt += rand_zalgo(zalgo_mid);
              if (down)
                  for (int j = 0; j < num_down; j++)
                      zalgoTxt += rand_zalgo(zalgo_down);
          }



          return zalgoTxt;
      }

      public static void main(String[] args){
          final String zalgoTxt = goZalgo("To invoke the hive-mind representing chaos.\n" +
                  "Invoking the feeling of chaos.\n" +
                  "With out order.\n" +
                  "The Nezperdian hive-mind of chaos. Zalgo.    \n" +
                  "He who Waits Behind The Wall.\n" +
                  "ZALGO!", true, false, true, true, true);

          try {
              final File fileDir = new File("zalgo.txt");      
              final Writer out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(fileDir), "UTF8"));

              final String[] lines = zalgoTxt.split("\n");

              for (int i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
                  String line = lines[i];
                  out.append(line).append("\r\n");;
              }

              out.flush();
              out.close();

          } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
              System.out.println(e.getMessage());
          } catch (IOException e) {
              System.out.println(e.getMessage());
          } catch (Exception e) {
              System.out.println(e.getMessage());
          }
      }
  }

If you look carefully here (another zalgo generator):

http://textozor.com/zalgo-text/

You can see that it uses javascript to generate the messed up code: http://textozor.com/zalgo-text/scriptz.js

Convert that logic into any language you want.