unistr()

Evaluate escaped Unicode characters in the argument. Unicode characters can be specified as \XXXX (4 hexadecimal digits), \+XXXXXX (6 hexadecimal digits), \uXXXX (4 hexadecimal digits), or \UXXXXXXXX (8 hexadecimal digits). To specify a backslash, write two backslashes. All other characters are taken literally. If the server encoding is not UTF-8, the Unicode code point identified by one of these escape sequences is converted to the actual server encoding; an error is reported if that's not possible. This function provides a (non-standard) alternative to string constants with Unicode escapes (see Section 4.1.2.3).

Signature

unistr ( text ) → text

Examples

SELECT unistr('d\0061t\+000061');

data

SELECT unistr('d\u0061t\U00000061');

data

Run against PostgreSQL 18.6 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Want to run this against your own PostgreSQL server from an iPhone, iPad or Mac? These are ours — every connection goes straight from the device to your database, with no account and no server of ours in between.

Postgres & FriendsPostgreSQL and the open-source engines around it

Signature and description adapted from the PostgreSQL manual, used under the PostgreSQL License. PostgreSQL is a registered trademark of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. This page is not affiliated with the PostgreSQL Global Development Group.