Unicode Escape/Unescape API

About the Unicode Escape/Unescape API

A Unicode escape and unescape API for converting text to \uXXXX format and back. Send a string with action set to escape and every character comes back as an escape sequence, ready to paste into JavaScript, JSON, Java or C# source without encoding problems. Send escaped text with action set to unescape and get the readable string back. Emoji and other characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane are written as surrogate pairs, the form those languages expect.

Developers use it to debug mojibake in logs, to inspect exactly which invisible or look-alike characters a string contains, to build string literals for localisation files, and to clean up escaped text copied out of JSON payloads or stack traces.

On the Free plan the escape action returns the escaped string and a character count. Paid plans add a per-character breakdown listing each character with its escape sequence and its U+ code point, which is the quickest way to spot a zero-width space or a Cyrillic letter hiding in Latin text.

How it works

The escape action walks the input by code point and writes every character, including plain ASCII letters and spaces, as \u followed by four upper-case hex digits. A character above U+FFFF, such as most emoji, is written as its UTF-16 surrogate pair, two \uXXXX sequences in a row, so 😀 becomes \uD83D\uDE00. character_count counts code points, so that emoji counts as one. unicode_points lists each character with char, its escape in unicode (the full pair for astral characters) and its codepoint in U+ form, such as U+1F600.

The unescape action recognises three forms: \uXXXX with exactly four hex digits, the braced \u{1F600} form with one to six digits, and \xXX with two. Anything else, including other backslash escapes like \n, is left as literal text. A braced value above U+10FFFF returns a 400. Surrogate pairs written as two \uXXXX sequences recombine into the original character. The response holds the result in unescaped, and character_count there is the JavaScript string length, which counts an emoji as two.

Any action other than escape is treated as unescape. The unicode_points breakdown is only produced by escape, and it is null on the Free plan.

What people use it for

JSON Processing

Escape Unicode characters in JSON strings for safe transmission and storage

Code Generation

Generate Unicode escape sequences for use in source code, configuration files, or string literals

Data Migration

Convert Unicode characters to escape sequences when migrating between systems with different encoding support

Debugging

View Unicode escape sequences of characters to debug encoding issues and identify problematic characters

Ways to call it

One endpoint, many ways in — REST with JSON, XML, YAML and CSV, plus GraphQL and an MCP interface for AI agents.

JSON

Default REST response

XML

Markup format

YAML

Human-readable

CSV

Tabular export

Beta

GraphQL

Query language

New

MCP

For AI agents

Request parameters — POST /v1/unicodeescape

Sent as JSON in the request body. Premium parameters are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them. Anything not listed here is dropped rather than passed through.

Required

Optional

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curl -X POST "https://api.apiverve.com/v1/unicodeescape" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text":"Hello World","action":"escape"}'

Authentication

Send your key in the x-api-key header. That is the only auth step — no token exchange, and no per-endpoint scope to configure.

Response — POST /v1/unicodeescape

Every APIVerve endpoint returns the same three top-level keys, so one response handler covers your whole integration: status, error and data. Only data changes shape.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "action": "escape",
    "original": "Hello World",
    "escaped": "\\u0048\\u0065\\u006C\\u006C\\u006F\\u0020\\u0057\\u006F\\u0072\\u006C\\u0064",
    "character_count": 11,
    "unicode_points": [
      {
        "char": "H",
        "unicode": "\\u0048",
        "codepoint": "U+0048"
      },
      {
        "char": "e",
        "unicode": "\\u0065",
        "codepoint": "U+0065"
      },
      {
        "char": "l",
        "unicode": "\\u006C",
        "codepoint": "U+006C"
      },
      {
        "char": "l",
        "unicode": "\\u006C",
        "codepoint": "U+006C"
      },
      {
        "char": "o",
        "unicode": "\\u006F",
        "codepoint": "U+006F"
      },
      {
        "char": " ",
        "unicode": "\\u0020",
        "codepoint": "U+0020"
      },
      {
        "char": "W",
        "unicode": "\\u0057",
        "codepoint": "U+0057"
      },
      {
        "char": "o",
        "unicode": "\\u006F",
        "codepoint": "U+006F"
      },
      {
        "char": "r",
        "unicode": "\\u0072",
        "codepoint": "U+0072"
      },
      {
        "char": "l",
        "unicode": "\\u006C",
        "codepoint": "U+006C"
      },
      {
        "char": "d",
        "unicode": "\\u0064",
        "codepoint": "U+0064"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Response headers

Every response carries your balance, so your own code always knows where it stands without polling anything. All four are exposed to browsers through CORS.

Errors

Read the HTTP status first, then error for the specific reason. The body names the parameter that has to change.

What a call costs — 1 credits per call

Credits are shared across every APIVerve API — one balance, one key, one bill. Failed requests never count against it, so a rejected input costs nothing.

Calls are what the credits buy at this API's rate — spend them here, on any of the other APIs, or across both. Nothing is reserved per endpoint.

Zero-code embed — one snippet, no backend

Drop an interactive Unicode Escape/Unescape form onto any page. The widget calls the API for you, so no key ever appears in your markup and there is nothing to deploy.

Changelog — Unicode Escape/Unescape API

Every change to this endpoint, newest first. Breaking changes ship as a new version and the previous one keeps serving — response fields are added, never removed or retyped in place, so an integration written against v1 keeps working.

Currently v1