Javascript’s Unicode Problem

A while ago I needed a simple string pad function, and since it’s a freakishly simple task, I just wrote a simple
function:

function limit(str, limit = 16, padString = "#", padPosition = "right") {
    const strLength = str.length;

    if (strLength > limit) {
        return str.substring(0, limit);
    } else if (strLength < limit) {
        const padRepeats = padString.repeat(limit - strLength);
        return (padPosition === "left") ? padRepeats + str : str + padRepeats;
    }
    return str;
}

Pretty simple, right? And it works too… Until you add in an emoji to your text. Then everything falls apart and worlds
collide! How? Simple:

"💩".length // 2!

(If you’re reading this on Linux you might actually see 2 broken unicode characters, and the result makes sense unless you have installed an emoji package on your browser or OS)...