Unicode Escape

About Unicode Converter

This converter moves between readable text and the escape forms used in source code — \uXXXX, \u{XXXXX} and \xXX. Escaping is how you get an emoji or a Cyrillic name safely through a config file, a properties file or a system that only tolerates ASCII.

Which escape syntax to write is a question about where the text is going, not about the text. \uXXXX is what a JavaScript, JSON or Java string literal takes; &#xXXXX; and &#NNNN; are what markup takes. Putting one where the other belongs fails quietly — a é inside a JavaScript string stays six literal characters, and a \u00e9 in HTML stays six literal characters, and neither looks wrong at a glance. All three are shown together for that reason.

The inspect mode is the diagnostic one: it lists every character with its code point, decimal value and UTF-8 bytes, and counts both characters and bytes. That is what identifies the invisible troublemakers — non-breaking spaces, zero-width joiners, smart quotes pasted in from a word processor, or a combining accent that only looks like a single letter.

Where it helps

• Escape, unescape and inspect in one place.
• Writes escapes as JavaScript \uXXXX or as hexadecimal or decimal character references, and shows all three side by side.
• Reads every one of those forms back, so anything escaped here unescapes here.
• Handles astral characters such as emoji as whole code points, not broken surrogate halves.
• Byte counts show what a UTF-8 length limit will actually measure.
• Escaping only non-ASCII keeps the readable parts of your string readable.

Limits

• Inspection reports code points, not grapheme clusters, so a flag emoji or an accented letter built from two code points shows as more than one row.
• It does not normalise text: visually identical strings in NFC and NFD forms remain different here, as they are for a computer.
• \xXX escapes only cover the first 256 code points, which is a limit of the notation itself.

Frequently asked questions

Why does one emoji count as two characters somewhere else?

Because that system counts UTF-16 units. Emoji above U+FFFF take two of them. The inspect mode shows the real code point and the UTF-8 byte length.

Why do two strings that look identical fail a comparison?

Inspect both. You will usually find a non-breaking space, a smart quote, or a combining accent instead of a precomposed character.

Which escape form should I use in JavaScript or JSON?

\uXXXX works everywhere. \u{...} is cleaner for astral characters in JavaScript but is not valid JSON.

Does unescaping accept mixed notations?

Yes. \u{1F600}, \u00e9 and \xe9 in the same string are all resolved.

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