local function unicode_codepoint_as_utf8(codepoint)
   --
   -- codepoint is a number
   --
   if codepoint <= 127 then
      return string.char(codepoint)

   elseif codepoint <= 2047 then
      --
      -- 110yyyxx 10xxxxxx         <-- useful notation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utf8
      --
      local highpart = math.floor(codepoint / 0x40)
      local lowpart  = codepoint - (0x40 * highpart)
      return string.char(0xC0 + highpart,
                         0x80 + lowpart)

   elseif codepoint <= 65535 then
      --
      -- 1110yyyy 10yyyyxx 10xxxxxx
      --
      local highpart  = math.floor(codepoint / 0x1000)
      local remainder = codepoint - 0x1000 * highpart
      local midpart   = math.floor(remainder / 0x40)
      local lowpart   = remainder - 0x40 * midpart

      highpart = 0xE0 + highpart
      midpart  = 0x80 + midpart
      lowpart  = 0x80 + lowpart

      --
      -- Check for an invalid character (thanks Andy R. at Adobe).
      -- See table 3.7, page 93, in http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.2.0/ch03.pdf#G28070
      --
      if ( highpart == 0xE0 and midpart < 0xA0 ) or
         ( highpart == 0xED and midpart > 0x9F ) or
         ( highpart == 0xF0 and midpart < 0x90 ) or
         ( highpart == 0xF4 and midpart > 0x8F )
      then
         return "?"
      else
         return string.char(highpart,
                            midpart,
                            lowpart)
      end

   else
      --
      -- 11110zzz 10zzyyyy 10yyyyxx 10xxxxxx
      --
      local highpart  = math.floor(codepoint / 0x40000)
      local remainder = codepoint - 0x40000 * highpart
      local midA      = math.floor(remainder / 0x1000)
      remainder       = remainder - 0x1000 * midA
      local midB      = math.floor(remainder / 0x40)
      local lowpart   = remainder - 0x40 * midB

      return string.char(0xF0 + highpart,
                         0x80 + midA,
                         0x80 + midB,
                         0x80 + lowpart)
   end
end