How to transfer `\u0627` into utf-8(php)

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to decode Unicode escape sequences like “\u00ed” to proper UTF-8 encoded characters?

$str = '\u0627\u0644\u0631\u0626\u064a\u0633';

How to transfer it into utf-8? thanks.

Answer 1

$str = '\u0627\u0644\u0631\u0626\u064a\u0633';
$converted = preg_replace('/\\\u([0-9a-z]{4})/i', '&#x$1;', $str);
echo $converted;  // displays الرئيس

Answer 2

$str = '"\u0627\u0644\u0631\u0626\u064a\u0633"';

echo json_decode($str);