Normalize Unicode dashes in slug generation

[marcodejongh]

Summary

This PR extracts and centralizes Unicode dash normalization logic across slug generation functions to ensure consistent handling of various dash-like characters (en dash, em dash, minus sign, etc.) that may appear in user input.

Key Changes

• Created normalizeDashes() helper function in url-utils.ts that converts Unicode dash variants (U+2010–U+2015, U+2212, U+FE58, U+FE63, U+FF0D) to ASCII hyphens
• Applied normalization to all slug generators:
  • generateClimbSlug()
  • generateSlugFromText()
  • generateDescriptionSlug()
  • generateLayoutSlug()
• Refactored getLayoutBySlug() in slug-utils.ts to use the new generateLayoutSlug() helper, removing ~20 lines of duplicated slug generation logic
• Exported generateLayoutSlug() from url-utils.ts for reuse across the codebase

Implementation Details

The normalizeDashes() function uses a regex pattern to replace all common Unicode dash/hyphen variants with a standard ASCII hyphen (-). This ensures that whether users paste content with en dashes, em dashes, or other Unicode variants, the resulting slugs are consistent and predictable.

This change improves maintainability by centralizing slug generation logic and prevents potential slug mismatches caused by different dash character encodings.

[vercel]

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project	Deployment	Review	Updated (UTC)
boardsesh	Building	Preview, Comment	Jan 24, 2026 0:28am

[claude]

Claude Review

✅ Ready to merge - Minor issues noted below, but nothing blocking.

Issues

1. Missing test coverage for new functionality - The normalizeDashes() function is the core addition but has no unit tests. Add tests verifying Unicode dash normalization (e.g., en dash –, em dash —, minus sign −) converts to ASCII hyphens. This is important because the function uses regex with Unicode escape sequences that could easily regress.

2. Consider exporting normalizeDashes - The function is private but may be useful elsewhere. If intentionally private for encapsulation, that's fine, but tests could still verify the behavior indirectly through the slug generators with Unicode input.

Suggested Test Addition

describe('Unicode dash normalization', () => {
  it('should normalize en dash to hyphen in climb slug', () => {
    expect(generateClimbSlug('Climb – Name')).toBe('climb-name');
  });
  
  it('should normalize em dash to hyphen', () => {
    expect(generateSlugFromText('Test — Value')).toBe('test-value');
  });
  
  it('should normalize minus sign to hyphen', () => {
    expect(generateLayoutSlug('Layout − Name')).toBe('layout-name');
  });
});