What is Unicode escaping?

Unicode escaping is the process of representing non-ASCII characters using escape sequences in the form \uXXXX, where XXXX is the hexadecimal code point of the character. This makes it possible to include any Unicode character in contexts that only support ASCII, such as certain programming languages, data formats, or legacy systems.

Examples of Unicode escaping

Original text with non-ASCII characters

Café au lait - French coffee with milk
Résumé - Summary of qualifications
こんにちは - Hello in Japanese
你好 - Hello in Chinese
Привет - Hello in Russian
안녕하세요 - Hello in Korean
Γειά σου - Hello in Greek
مرحبا - Hello in Arabic
שלום - Hello in Hebrew
Olá - Hello in Portuguese

Converted to escaped Unicode

Caf\u00e9 au lait - French coffee with milk
R\u00e9sum\u00e9 - Summary of qualifications
\u3053\u3093\u306b\u3061\u306f - Hello in Japanese
\u4f60\u597d - Hello in Chinese
\u041f\u0440\u0438\u0432\u0435\u0442 - Hello in Russian
\uc548\ub155\ud558\uc138\uc694 - Hello in Korean
\u0393\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 - Hello in Greek
\u0645\u0631\u062d\u0628\u0627 - Hello in Arabic
\u05e9\u05dc\u05d5\u05dd - Hello in Hebrew
Ol\u00e1 - Hello in Portuguese

Common Unicode escape sequences

Character	Unicode escape	Description
é	\u00e9	Latin small letter e with acute
ñ	\u00f1	Latin small letter n with tilde
ö	\u00f6	Latin small letter o with diaeresis
€	\u20ac	Euro sign
あ	\u3042	Hiragana letter a
中	\u4e2d	CJK unified ideograph (middle)
Б	\u0411	Cyrillic capital letter be
α	\u03b1	Greek small letter alpha

When to use Unicode escaping

When working with programming languages or environments that require ASCII-only source code
When creating JSON or other data formats that need to be portable across different systems
When storing text in databases or files that don't fully support Unicode
When debugging issues related to character encoding
When creating configuration files that need to be edited in environments with limited Unicode support

Unicode escaping in different programming languages

Language	Unicode escape format	Example
JavaScript	\uXXXX	var text = "Caf\u00e9";
Java	\uXXXX	String text = "Caf\u00e9";
C#	\uXXXX	string text = "Caf\u00e9";
Python	\uXXXX or \UXXXXXXXX	text = "Caf\u00e9"
Ruby	\uXXXX	text = "Caf\u00e9"

Note:

While Unicode escaping makes text compatible with ASCII-only environments, it makes the text less readable for humans. Use it when technical compatibility is required, but prefer direct Unicode when possible in modern systems that fully support it.