Print a little square of multicoloured unicode blocks using R, {purrr} and {multicolor}

squarenicode.R

# Print a square of multicoloured unicode blocks
# Matt Dray, Aug 2021

# Related posts on rostrum.blog:
#   https://www.rostrum.blog/2021/06/26/emojiscape/
#   https://www.rostrum.blog/2021/06/28/pixel-art/
#   https://www.rostrum.blog/2021/08/10/dehex/

# Install if you haven't already
install.packages("purrr")       # for function iteration
install.packages("multicolor")  # multicoloured console output

# Function: randomly select unicode elements from a provided list, arrange into
# a square, color randomly according to a provided pallette, then print to the
# console
make_squarenicode <- function(unicode_set,       # vector of unicode codes
                              pal = rainbow(7),  # colour palette 
                              size = 10,         # width and height
                              col = TRUE) {      # FALSE for no color 
  
  x_chars <- sample(unicode_set, size ^ 2, replace = TRUE)
  x_mat <- matrix(x_chars, nrow = size, ncol = size)
  
  if (!col) {
    for (i in 1:nrow(x_mat)) {
      cat(x_mat[i, ], "\n")
    }
  }
  
  if (col) {
    for (i in 1:nrow(x_mat)) {
      multicolor::multi_color(
        paste(x_mat[i, ], collapse = " "),
        colors = sample(pal, size, replace = TRUE)
      )
    }
  }
  
}

# Pass unicode codepoint in the form "\U<code>".
# Here's an example code list for geometric shapes:
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Geometric_Shapes

# Basic example using the unicode for a heart
make_squarenicode("\U2665")

# Now a more sophisticated example using base::intToUtf8() that will print
# out multiple examples in your console at once

# You can also use the form 0x<code>, which lets you declare multiple consecutive  
# codepoints more easily without typing them all out
unicode_sets <- list(
  quadrants         = 0x2596 + 0:9,
  triangles         = 0x25E2 + 0:3,
  circle_halves     = 0x25D0 + 0:3,
  shadow_squares    = 0x274F + 0:3,
  points_shaded     = 0x2591 + 0:1,
  heavy_light_boxes = 0x2543 + 0:3,
  overlaid_crosses  = 0x292B + 0:1,
  braille           = 0x28C0 + 0:6,
  corner_brackets   = 0x300E + 0:1,
  dice              = 0x2680 + 0:5,
  ellipses          = 0x22EE + 0:3,
  corners           = 0x231C + 0:3,
  flags             = 0x2690 + 0:1,
  hearts            = 0x2665
)

# Function: print out squares using each unicode set
present_square <- function(set, set_name = names(set)) {
  cat("\n\n", set_name, "\n\n")
  make_squarenicode(intToUtf8(set, multiple = TRUE))
}

# Iterate over the code points to print each one consecutively
purrr::iwalk(unicode_sets, present_square)