Javascript: Unicode string to hex

Here is a tweak of McDowell's algorithm that doesn't pad the result:

  function toHex(str) {
    var result = '';
    for (var i=0; i<str.length; i++) {
      result += str.charCodeAt(i).toString(16);
    }
    return result;
  }

It depends on what encoding you use. If you want to convert utf-8 encoded hex to string, use this:

function fromHex(hex,str){
  try{
    str = decodeURIComponent(hex.replace(/(..)/g,'%$1'))
  }
  catch(e){
    str = hex
    console.log('invalid hex input: ' + hex)
  }
  return str
}

For the other direction use this:

function toHex(str,hex){
  try{
    hex = unescape(encodeURIComponent(str))
    .split('').map(function(v){
      return v.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)
    }).join('')
  }
  catch(e){
    hex = str
    console.log('invalid text input: ' + str)
  }
  return hex
}

Remember that a JavaScript code unit is 16 bits wide. Therefore the hex string form will be 4 digits per code unit.

usage:

var str = "\u6f22\u5b57"; // "\u6f22\u5b57" === "漢字"
alert(str.hexEncode().hexDecode());

String to hex form:

String.prototype.hexEncode = function(){
    var hex, i;

    var result = "";
    for (i=0; i<this.length; i++) {
        hex = this.charCodeAt(i).toString(16);
        result += ("000"+hex).slice(-4);
    }

    return result
}

Back again:

String.prototype.hexDecode = function(){
    var j;
    var hexes = this.match(/.{1,4}/g) || [];
    var back = "";
    for(j = 0; j<hexes.length; j++) {
        back += String.fromCharCode(parseInt(hexes[j], 16));
    }

    return back;
}