I don't know if anyone else has done this, but I thought my own effort (attached) might be of interest. It converts String -> String to and from UTF8 representations. It /should/ compile with any Haskell98 compiler which also has the (base) library Data.Bits. I'd be happy to see it in the standard hierarchy, if that's desired. Good points: (1) I think I've tested it fairly thoroughly; (2) when decoding UTF8 sequences, it rejects all ill-formatted sequences, and such errors can be easily detected (without exception handlers). Bad points: it's unoptimised. {- This module contains functions for converting to and from the UTF8 representations for Strings. -} module UTF8( toUTF8, -- :: String -> String -- Converts a String (whose characters must all have codes <2^31) into -- its UTF8 representation. fromUTF8WE, -- :: Monad m => String -> m String -- Converts a UTF8 representation of a String back into the String, -- catching all possible format errors. -- -- Example: With the Haskell module Control.Monad.Error, you can -- instance this as -- (fromUTF8WE :: String -> Either String String) -- to get a conversion function which either succeeds (Right) or -- returns an error message (Left). ) where import Char import List import Data.Bits -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Encoding -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- | Converts a String into its UTF8 representation. toUTF8 :: String -> String toUTF8 [] = [] toUTF8 (x:xs) = let xs1 = toUTF8 xs ox = ord x mkUTF8 :: Int -> String -> Int -> Int -> String mkUTF8 x0 xs0 xmask0 xmax0 = let xbot = 0x80 .|. (x0 .&. 0x3f) x1 = x0 `shiftR` 6 xs1 = chr xbot : xs0 in if x1 < xmax0 then chr (xmask0 .|. x1) : xs1 else let xmask1 = xmask0 .|. xmax0 xmax1 = xmax0 `shiftR` 1 in mkUTF8 x1 xs1 xmask1 xmax1 in if ox <= 0x7f then x : xs1 else if ox `shiftR` 31 /= 0 then error ("Huge character with code " ++ show ox ++ " detected in string being converted to UTF8.") else mkUTF8 ox xs1 0xc0 0x20 -- | Converts a UTF8 representation of a String back into the String, -- catching all possible format errors. -- -- Example: With the Haskell module Control.Monad.Error, you can -- instance this as -- (fromUTF8WE :: String -> Either String String) -- to get a conversion function which either succeeds (Right) or -- returns an error message (Left). fromUTF8WE :: Monad m => String -> m String fromUTF8WE [] = return [] fromUTF8WE (x0 : xs0) = let ox = ord x0 in case topZero8 ox of 7 -> do xs1 <- fromUTF8WE xs0 return (x0 : xs1) 6 -> fail "UTF8 escape sequence starts 10xxxxxx" 0 -> fail "UTF8 escape sequence starts 11111110" -1 -> fail "UTF8 escape sequence starts 11111111" n -> let r = 6 - n -- number of 6-bit pieces xtop = ox .&. ones n minx = bit ( if r == 1 then 7 else 5*r + 1 ) mkx [] _ _ = fail "UTF8 string ends in middle of escape sequence" mkx (ch : xs1) x0 count0 = do let och = ord ch if och .&. 0x80 /= 0x80 then fail ("UTF8 escape sequence contains continuing " ++ "character not of form 10xxxxxx") else return () let xbot = och .&. 0x3f x1 = (x0 `shiftL` 6) .|. xbot count1 = count0 - 1 if count1 == 0 then return (x1,xs1) else mkx xs1 x1 count1 in do (x,xs1) <- mkx xs0 xtop r if x < minx then fail ("UTF8 escape sequence contains character not " ++ "optimally encoded") else do xs2 <- fromUTF8WE xs1 return (chr x : xs2) -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Binary utilities -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- | return the number of the top bit which is zero, or -1 if they -- are all zero, for a number between 0 and 255. topZero8 :: Int -> Int topZero8 i = case (findIndex not (map (\ bn -> testBit i bn) [7,6..0] )) of Just n -> 7 - n Nothing -> -1 -- | (ones i) is number with binary representation 1 written i times. ones :: Int -> Int ones i = bit i - 1