Displaying unicode symbol by outputting unicode with PHP function

Question

I'm trying to output the unicode for a character as a the return type for my PHP function, but when I call the function in practice it just outputs the code without the "0x" rather than a symbol. However, if I explicitly state the unicode in my HTML, it outputs the symbol fine. Below is a simplified version of my code. Why is this happening?

In a PHP file displaying a table:

<td><?php echo verifyMatch($a,$b) ?></td>

In my function in another file:

function verifyMatch($_a,$_b){
  $_output = null;
  if (checkCondition()){
    $_output = 0x2714;
    // unicode for tick
  } else {
    $_output = 0x2718;
    // unicode for cross
  }
  return $_output;
}

Answer 1

As far as PHP is concerned, your values 0x2714 and 0x2718 are simply hexadecimal numbers and they are stored as just 2714 and 2718, respectively. In actuality, PHP should be converting them to their decimal values instead. When outputted into HTML, they are being outputted as just that - numbers.

If you want to output them in HTML and have the actual symbols appear, try pre-pending them with &#x and appending them with a ;:

<td><?php echo '&#x' . verifyMatch($a, $b) . ';'; ?></td>

If they are being converted to their decimal values, you can prepend them with just &# instead of &#x. The added x is for the hex-values.

Answer 2

Ref: php chr with unicode values

function replace_unicode_escape_sequence($match) {
    return mb_convert_encoding(pack('H*', $match[1]), 'UTF-8', 'UCS-2BE');
}
function unicode_chr ($chr) {
    $str = "\u".end(explode("+", $chr));
    return preg_replace_callback('/\\\\u([0-9a-f]{4})/i', 'replace_unicode_escape_sequence', $str);
}

function verifyMatch($_a,$_b){
    $_output = null;
    if (checkCondition()){
       $_output = unicode_chr("U+2714");   // unicode for tick
    }
    else {
        $_output = unicode_chr("U+2718");   // unicode for cross
    }
    return $_output;
}