UTF-8 encodes a unicode codepoint into 1, 2, 3, or 4 bytes. Assuming that you have a valid UTF-8 encoding of a codepoint, then the first byte tells you how many

UTF-8 encodes a unicode codepoint into 1, 2, 3, or 4 bytes. Assuming that you have a valid UTF-8 encoding of a codepoint, then the first byte tells you how many bytes are in the encoding. 0-127 inclusive means one byte, 192-223 means 2, 224-239 means 3, and 240-247 means 4. If the first byte is 0xC0 (192), then the sequence is two bytes long. However, not every 2-byte sequence that starts with 0xC0 is valid UTF-8. The uppermost bits of the second byte must be `10` in a valid 2-byte UTF-8 sequence. 0x27 does not meet that criteria, so `0xC0 0x27` is not valid UTF-8. If your escape function operates at the level of unicode codepoints but doesn't actually verify that they're valid, you end up copying a single quote into your "escaped" buffer that downstream parts of the code will hit.