%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Based on query discussed on #erlang,inputs from smoove,stonecypher.
%% 
%% To be able to convert unicode to a form that can be evaluated 
%% in javascript since it of unicode escape format
%% eg: the copyright symbol will be escaped into \u00a9
%%
%%
%%%%
%% Resources for unicode / binary/ string conversion in erlang
%%%%
%% http://pianosa.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/erlang/utf8.erl
%% http://12monkeys.co.uk/starling/
%% http://www.lshift.net/~tonyg/erlang-rfc4627/
%% http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/io.html
%% http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/International_characters_in_XUL_JavaScript
%%%%
%% -b101
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

%%functions added to utf8.erl  which already exports [encode/1, decode/1]
-export([list_to_uXXXX/1,binary_to_uXXXX/1]

%list into unicode escaped javascript form 
list_to_uXXXX(Str)->
 lists:flatten[io_lib:format("\\u~4.16.0B",[X]) || X <- Str].

%% first converting to list,then to uXXXX form
binary_to_uXXXX(Bin)->
 list_to_uXXXX(decode(Bin)).

UPDATES
%%%%%%%%

found that suppose you have unicode rendered within javascript, it can very much be used as a literal, and will infact match identically to the same unicode word found elsewhere within the HTML DOM.

also, even though the to_XXXX did no throw any errors, it wasnt showing the correct possible because N number of binaries/list does not necessarily mean N symbols (a symbol can be formed by more than a series of binary elements)

an excellent utility that helped me easily evalute the decimal/binary/hexa values of unicode symbols (just paste them into a text area to see results) was located at http://software.ellerton.net/txt2bin/

~b101