How do I remove diacritics (accents) from a string in .NET?

I've not used this method, but Michael Kaplan describes a method for doing so in his blog post (with a confusing title) that talks about stripping diacritics: Stripping is an interesting job (aka On the meaning of meaningless, aka All Mn characters are non-spacing, but some are more non-spacing than others)

static string RemoveDiacritics(string text) 
{
    var normalizedString = text.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
    var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder(capacity: normalizedString.Length);

    for (int i = 0; i < normalizedString.Length; i++)
    {
        char c = normalizedString[i];
        var unicodeCategory = CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(c);
        if (unicodeCategory != UnicodeCategory.NonSpacingMark)
        {
            stringBuilder.Append(c);
        }
    }

    return stringBuilder
        .ToString()
        .Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormC);
}

Note that this is a followup to his earlier post: Stripping diacritics....

The approach uses String.Normalize to split the input string into constituent glyphs (basically separating the "base" characters from the diacritics) and then scans the result and retains only the base characters. It's just a little complicated, but really you're looking at a complicated problem.

Of course, if you're limiting yourself to French, you could probably get away with the simple table-based approach in How to remove accents and tilde in a C++ std::string, as recommended by @David Dibben.

In case someone is interested, I was looking for something similar and ended writing the following:

public static string NormalizeStringForUrl(string name)
{
    String normalizedString = name.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

    foreach (char c in normalizedString)
    {
        switch (CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(c))
        {
            case UnicodeCategory.LowercaseLetter:
            case UnicodeCategory.UppercaseLetter:
            case UnicodeCategory.DecimalDigitNumber:
                stringBuilder.Append(c);
                break;
            case UnicodeCategory.SpaceSeparator:
            case UnicodeCategory.ConnectorPunctuation:
            case UnicodeCategory.DashPunctuation:
                stringBuilder.Append('_');
                break;
        }
    }
    string result = stringBuilder.ToString();
    return String.Join("_", result.Split(new char[] { '_' }
        , StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)); // remove duplicate underscores
}

this did the trick for me...

string accentedStr;
byte[] tempBytes;
tempBytes = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-8").GetBytes(accentedStr);
string asciiStr = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(tempBytes);

quick&short!

I needed something that converts all major unicode characters and the voted answer leaved a few out so I've created a version of CodeIgniter's convert_accented_characters($str) into C# that is easily customisable:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public static class Strings
{
    static Dictionary<string, string> foreign_characters = new Dictionary<string, string>
    {
        { "äæǽ", "ae" },
        { "öœ", "oe" },
        { "ü", "ue" },
        { "Ä", "Ae" },
        { "Ü", "Ue" },
        { "Ö", "Oe" },
        { "ÀÁÂÃÄÅǺĀĂĄǍΑΆẢẠẦẪẨẬẰẮẴẲẶА", "A" },
        { "àáâãåǻāăąǎªαάảạầấẫẩậằắẵẳặа", "a" },
        { "Б", "B" },
        { "б", "b" },
        { "ÇĆĈĊČ", "C" },
        { "çćĉċč", "c" },
        { "Д", "D" },
        { "д", "d" },
        { "ÐĎĐΔ", "Dj" },
        { "ðďđδ", "dj" },
        { "ÈÉÊËĒĔĖĘĚΕΈẼẺẸỀẾỄỂỆЕЭ", "E" },
        { "èéêëēĕėęěέεẽẻẹềếễểệеэ", "e" },
        { "Ф", "F" },
        { "ф", "f" },
        { "ĜĞĠĢΓГҐ", "G" },
        { "ĝğġģγгґ", "g" },
        { "ĤĦ", "H" },
        { "ĥħ", "h" },
        { "ÌÍÎÏĨĪĬǏĮİΗΉΊΙΪỈỊИЫ", "I" },
        { "ìíîïĩīĭǐįıηήίιϊỉịиыї", "i" },
        { "Ĵ", "J" },
        { "ĵ", "j" },
        { "ĶΚК", "K" },
        { "ķκк", "k" },
        { "ĹĻĽĿŁΛЛ", "L" },
        { "ĺļľŀłλл", "l" },
        { "М", "M" },
        { "м", "m" },
        { "ÑŃŅŇΝН", "N" },
        { "ñńņňʼnνн", "n" },
        { "ÒÓÔÕŌŎǑŐƠØǾΟΌΩΏỎỌỒỐỖỔỘỜỚỠỞỢО", "O" },
        { "òóôõōŏǒőơøǿºοόωώỏọồốỗổộờớỡởợо", "o" },
        { "П", "P" },
        { "п", "p" },
        { "ŔŖŘΡР", "R" },
        { "ŕŗřρр", "r" },
        { "ŚŜŞȘŠΣС", "S" },
        { "śŝşșšſσςс", "s" },
        { "ȚŢŤŦτТ", "T" },
        { "țţťŧт", "t" },
        { "ÙÚÛŨŪŬŮŰŲƯǓǕǗǙǛŨỦỤỪỨỮỬỰУ", "U" },
        { "ùúûũūŭůűųưǔǖǘǚǜυύϋủụừứữửựу", "u" },
        { "ÝŸŶΥΎΫỲỸỶỴЙ", "Y" },
        { "ýÿŷỳỹỷỵй", "y" },
        { "В", "V" },
        { "в", "v" },
        { "Ŵ", "W" },
        { "ŵ", "w" },
        { "ŹŻŽΖЗ", "Z" },
        { "źżžζз", "z" },
        { "ÆǼ", "AE" },
        { "ß", "ss" },
        { "IJ", "IJ" },
        { "ij", "ij" },
        { "Œ", "OE" },
        { "ƒ", "f" },
        { "ξ", "ks" },
        { "π", "p" },
        { "β", "v" },
        { "μ", "m" },
        { "ψ", "ps" },
        { "Ё", "Yo" },
        { "ё", "yo" },
        { "Є", "Ye" },
        { "є", "ye" },
        { "Ї", "Yi" },
        { "Ж", "Zh" },
        { "ж", "zh" },
        { "Х", "Kh" },
        { "х", "kh" },
        { "Ц", "Ts" },
        { "ц", "ts" },
        { "Ч", "Ch" },
        { "ч", "ch" },
        { "Ш", "Sh" },
        { "ш", "sh" },
        { "Щ", "Shch" },
        { "щ", "shch" },
        { "ЪъЬь", "" },
        { "Ю", "Yu" },
        { "ю", "yu" },
        { "Я", "Ya" },
        { "я", "ya" },
    };

    public static char RemoveDiacritics(this char c){
        foreach(KeyValuePair<string, string> entry in foreign_characters)
        {
            if(entry.Key.IndexOf (c) != -1)
            {
                return entry.Value[0];
            }
        }
        return c;
    }

    public static string RemoveDiacritics(this string s) 
    {
        //StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder ();
        string text = "";


        foreach (char c in s)
        {
            int len = text.Length;

            foreach(KeyValuePair<string, string> entry in foreign_characters)
            {
                if(entry.Key.IndexOf (c) != -1)
                {
                    text += entry.Value;
                    break;
                }
            }

            if (len == text.Length) {
                text += c;  
            }
        }
        return text;
    }
}

Usage

// for strings
"crème brûlée".RemoveDiacritics (); // creme brulee

// for chars
"Ã"[0].RemoveDiacritics (); // A