diff --git a/src/util/unicode.cpp b/src/util/unicode.cpp
index 59aea736547..cb22f3a5d65 100644
--- a/src/util/unicode.cpp
+++ b/src/util/unicode.cpp
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ Author: Daniel Kroening, kroening@kroening.com
 \*******************************************************************/
 
 #include <cstring>
+#include <locale>
+#include <codecvt>
 
 #include "unicode.h"
 
@@ -253,3 +255,34 @@ const char **narrow_argv(int argc, const wchar_t **argv_wide)
   
   return argv_narrow;
 }
+
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16be(const std::string& in)
+{
+  std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<wchar_t> > converter;
+  return converter.from_bytes(in);
+}
+
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16le(const std::string& in)
+{
+  std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<wchar_t,0x10ffffUL,std::codecvt_mode::little_endian> > converter;
+  return converter.from_bytes(in);
+}
+
+std::string utf16le_to_ascii(const std::wstring& in)
+{
+  std::string result;
+  std::locale loc;
+  for(const auto c : in)
+  {
+    if(c <= 255 && isprint(c,loc))
+      result+=(unsigned char)c;
+    else
+    {
+      result+="\\u";
+      char hex[5];
+      sprintf(hex,"%04x",(wchar_t)c);
+      result+=hex;
+    }
+  }
+  return result;
+}
diff --git a/src/util/unicode.h b/src/util/unicode.h
index 44038a26c04..e22bb10574c 100644
--- a/src/util/unicode.h
+++ b/src/util/unicode.h
@@ -21,6 +21,10 @@ std::wstring widen(const std::string &s);
 
 std::string utf32_to_utf8(const std::basic_string<unsigned int> &s);
 std::string utf16_to_utf8(const std::basic_string<unsigned short int> &s);
+std::string utf16le_to_ascii(const std::wstring&);
+
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16be(const std::string&);
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16le(const std::string&);
 
 const char **narrow_argv(int argc, const wchar_t **argv_wide);