How to convert text to unicode code point like \u0054\u0068\u0069\u0073 using php?

Question

EDIT 2: I\'d like to convert English words to unicode numbers using php5 and then produced as \\u* * * * where * * * * is the unicode number.

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Answer 1

json_encode pretty much does it for you, but only for non-ASCII characters. So all you need to do is to convert ASCII characters by hand. Here's a function that does that on a character-by-character basis:

function utf8ToUnicodeCodePoints($str) {
    if (!mb_check_encoding($str, 'UTF-8')) {
        trigger_error('$str is not encoded in UTF-8, I cannot work like this');
        return false;
    }
    return preg_replace_callback('/./u', function ($m) {
        $ord = ord($m[0]);
        if ($ord <= 127) {
            return sprintf('\u%04x', $ord);
        } else {
            return trim(json_encode($m[0]), '"');
        }
    }, $str);
}