std::pair<const char32_t *, char *>
avx2_convert_utf32_to_utf8(const char32_t *buf, size_t len, char *utf8_output) {
  const char32_t *end = buf + len;
  const __m256i v_0000 = _mm256_setzero_si256();
  const __m256i v_ffff0000 = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0xffff0000);
  const __m256i v_ff80 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xff80);
  const __m256i v_f800 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xf800);
  const __m256i v_c080 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xc080);
  const __m256i v_7fffffff = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0x7fffffff);
  __m256i running_max = _mm256_setzero_si256();
  __m256i forbidden_bytemask = _mm256_setzero_si256();

  const size_t safety_margin =
      12; // to avoid overruns, see issue
          // https://github.com/simdutf/simdutf/issues/92

  while (end - buf >= std::ptrdiff_t(16 + safety_margin)) {
    __m256i in = _mm256_loadu_si256((__m256i *)buf);
    __m256i nextin = _mm256_loadu_si256((__m256i *)buf + 1);
    running_max = _mm256_max_epu32(_mm256_max_epu32(in, running_max), nextin);

    // Pack 32-bit UTF-32 code units to 16-bit UTF-16 code units with unsigned
    // saturation
    __m256i in_16 = _mm256_packus_epi32(_mm256_and_si256(in, v_7fffffff),
                                        _mm256_and_si256(nextin, v_7fffffff));
    in_16 = _mm256_permute4x64_epi64(in_16, 0b11011000);

    // Try to apply UTF-16 => UTF-8 routine on 256 bits
    // (haswell/avx2_convert_utf16_to_utf8.cpp)

    if (_mm256_testz_si256(in_16, v_ff80)) { // ASCII fast path!!!!
      // 1. pack the bytes
      const __m128i utf8_packed = _mm_packus_epi16(
          _mm256_castsi256_si128(in_16), _mm256_extractf128_si256(in_16, 1));
      // 2. store (16 bytes)
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_packed);
      // 3. adjust pointers
      buf += 16;
      utf8_output += 16;
      continue; // we are done for this round!
    }
    // no bits set above 7th bit
    const __m256i one_byte_bytemask =
        _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_ff80), v_0000);
    const uint32_t one_byte_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(one_byte_bytemask));

    // no bits set above 11th bit
    const __m256i one_or_two_bytes_bytemask =
        _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_f800), v_0000);
    const uint32_t one_or_two_bytes_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(one_or_two_bytes_bytemask));
    if (one_or_two_bytes_bitmask == 0xffffffff) {
      // 1. prepare 2-byte values
      // input 16-bit word : [0000|0aaa|aabb|bbbb] x 8
      // expected output   : [110a|aaaa|10bb|bbbb] x 8
      const __m256i v_1f00 = _mm256_set1_epi16((int16_t)0x1f00);
      const __m256i v_003f = _mm256_set1_epi16((int16_t)0x003f);

      // t0 = [000a|aaaa|bbbb|bb00]
      const __m256i t0 = _mm256_slli_epi16(in_16, 2);
      // t1 = [000a|aaaa|0000|0000]
      const __m256i t1 = _mm256_and_si256(t0, v_1f00);
      // t2 = [0000|0000|00bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t2 = _mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_003f);
      // t3 = [000a|aaaa|00bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t3 = _mm256_or_si256(t1, t2);
      // t4 = [110a|aaaa|10bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t4 = _mm256_or_si256(t3, v_c080);

      // 2. merge ASCII and 2-byte codewords
      const __m256i utf8_unpacked =
          _mm256_blendv_epi8(t4, in_16, one_byte_bytemask);

      // 3. prepare bitmask for 8-bit lookup
      const uint32_t M0 = one_byte_bitmask & 0x55555555;
      const uint32_t M1 = M0 >> 7;
      const uint32_t M2 = (M1 | M0) & 0x00ff00ff;
      // 4. pack the bytes

      const uint8_t *row =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_utf8_bytes[uint8_t(M2)][0];
      const uint8_t *row_2 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_utf8_bytes[uint8_t(M2 >>
                                                                       16)][0];

      const __m128i shuffle = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row + 1));
      const __m128i shuffle_2 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row_2 + 1));

      const __m256i utf8_packed = _mm256_shuffle_epi8(
          utf8_unpacked, _mm256_setr_m128i(shuffle, shuffle_2));
      // 5. store bytes
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output,
                       _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_packed));
      utf8_output += row[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output,
                       _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_packed, 1));
      utf8_output += row_2[0];

      // 6. adjust pointers
      buf += 16;
      continue;
    }
    // Must check for overflow in packing
    const __m256i saturation_bytemask = _mm256_cmpeq_epi32(
        _mm256_and_si256(_mm256_or_si256(in, nextin), v_ffff0000), v_0000);
    const uint32_t saturation_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(saturation_bytemask));
    if (saturation_bitmask == 0xffffffff) {
      // case: code units from register produce either 1, 2 or 3 UTF-8 bytes
      const __m256i v_d800 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xd800);
      forbidden_bytemask = _mm256_or_si256(
          forbidden_bytemask,
          _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_f800), v_d800));

      const __m256i dup_even = _mm256_setr_epi16(
          0x0000, 0x0202, 0x0404, 0x0606, 0x0808, 0x0a0a, 0x0c0c, 0x0e0e,
          0x0000, 0x0202, 0x0404, 0x0606, 0x0808, 0x0a0a, 0x0c0c, 0x0e0e);

      /* In this branch we handle three cases:
        1. [0000|0000|0ccc|cccc] => [0ccc|cccc]                           -
        single UFT-8 byte
        2. [0000|0bbb|bbcc|cccc] => [110b|bbbb], [10cc|cccc]              - two
        UTF-8 bytes
        3. [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] => [1110|aaaa], [10bb|bbbb], [10cc|cccc] -
        three UTF-8 bytes

        We expand the input word (16-bit) into two code units (32-bit), thus
        we have room for four bytes. However, we need five distinct bit
        layouts. Note that the last byte in cases #2 and #3 is the same.

        We precompute byte 1 for case #1 and the common byte for cases #2 & #3
        in register t2.

        We precompute byte 1 for case #3 and -- **conditionally** -- precompute
        either byte 1 for case #2 or byte 2 for case #3. Note that they
        differ by exactly one bit.

        Finally from these two code units we build proper UTF-8 sequence, taking
        into account the case (i.e, the number of bytes to write).
      */
      /**
       * Given [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] our goal is to produce:
       * t2 => [0ccc|cccc] [10cc|cccc]
       * s4 => [1110|aaaa] ([110b|bbbb] OR [10bb|bbbb])
       */
#define simdutf_vec(x) _mm256_set1_epi16(static_cast<uint16_t>(x))
      // [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] => [bbcc|cccc|bbcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t0 = _mm256_shuffle_epi8(in_16, dup_even);
      // [bbcc|cccc|bbcc|cccc] => [00cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t1 = _mm256_and_si256(t0, simdutf_vec(0b0011111101111111));
      // [00cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc] => [10cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t2 = _mm256_or_si256(t1, simdutf_vec(0b1000000000000000));

      // [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] =>  [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bbcc]
      const __m256i s0 = _mm256_srli_epi16(in_16, 4);
      // [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bbcc] => [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bb00]
      const __m256i s1 = _mm256_and_si256(s0, simdutf_vec(0b0000111111111100));
      // [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bb00] => [00bb|bbbb|0000|aaaa]
      const __m256i s2 = _mm256_maddubs_epi16(s1, simdutf_vec(0x0140));
      // [00bb|bbbb|0000|aaaa] => [11bb|bbbb|1110|aaaa]
      const __m256i s3 = _mm256_or_si256(s2, simdutf_vec(0b1100000011100000));
      const __m256i m0 = _mm256_andnot_si256(one_or_two_bytes_bytemask,
                                             simdutf_vec(0b0100000000000000));
      const __m256i s4 = _mm256_xor_si256(s3, m0);
#undef simdutf_vec

      // 4. expand code units 16-bit => 32-bit
      const __m256i out0 = _mm256_unpacklo_epi16(t2, s4);
      const __m256i out1 = _mm256_unpackhi_epi16(t2, s4);

      // 5. compress 32-bit code units into 1, 2 or 3 bytes -- 2 x shuffle
      const uint32_t mask = (one_byte_bitmask & 0x55555555) |
                            (one_or_two_bytes_bitmask & 0xaaaaaaaa);
      // Due to the wider registers, the following path is less likely to be
      // useful.
      /*if(mask == 0) {
        // We only have three-byte code units. Use fast path.
        const __m256i shuffle =
      _mm256_setr_epi8(2,3,1,6,7,5,10,11,9,14,15,13,-1,-1,-1,-1,
      2,3,1,6,7,5,10,11,9,14,15,13,-1,-1,-1,-1); const __m256i utf8_0 =
      _mm256_shuffle_epi8(out0, shuffle); const __m256i utf8_1 =
      _mm256_shuffle_epi8(out1, shuffle);
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output, _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_0));
        utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output, _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_1));
        utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output,
      _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_0,1)); utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output,
      _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_1,1)); utf8_output += 12; buf += 16;
        continue;
      }*/
      const uint8_t mask0 = uint8_t(mask);
      const uint8_t *row0 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask0][0];
      const __m128i shuffle0 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row0 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_0 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_castsi256_si128(out0), shuffle0);

      const uint8_t mask1 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 8);
      const uint8_t *row1 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask1][0];
      const __m128i shuffle1 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row1 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_1 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_castsi256_si128(out1), shuffle1);

      const uint8_t mask2 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 16);
      const uint8_t *row2 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask2][0];
      const __m128i shuffle2 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row2 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_2 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_extractf128_si256(out0, 1), shuffle2);

      const uint8_t mask3 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 24);
      const uint8_t *row3 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask3][0];
      const __m128i shuffle3 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row3 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_3 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_extractf128_si256(out1, 1), shuffle3);

      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_0);
      utf8_output += row0[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_1);
      utf8_output += row1[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_2);
      utf8_output += row2[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_3);
      utf8_output += row3[0];
      buf += 16;
    } else {
      // case: at least one 32-bit word is larger than 0xFFFF <=> it will
      // produce four UTF-8 bytes. Let us do a scalar fallback. It may seem
      // wasteful to use scalar code, but being efficient with SIMD may require
      // large, non-trivial tables?
      size_t forward = 15;
      size_t k = 0;
      if (size_t(end - buf) < forward + 1) {
        forward = size_t(end - buf - 1);
      }
      for (; k < forward; k++) {
        uint32_t word = buf[k];
        if ((word & 0xFFFFFF80) == 0) { // 1-byte (ASCII)
          *utf8_output++ = char(word);
        } else if ((word & 0xFFFFF800) == 0) { // 2-byte
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 6) | 0b11000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        } else if ((word & 0xFFFF0000) == 0) { // 3-byte
          if (word >= 0xD800 && word <= 0xDFFF) {
            return std::make_pair(nullptr, utf8_output);
          }
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 12) | 0b11100000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 6) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        } else { // 4-byte
          if (word > 0x10FFFF) {
            return std::make_pair(nullptr, utf8_output);
          }
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 18) | 0b11110000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 12) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 6) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        }
      }
      buf += k;
    }
  } // while

  // check for invalid input
  const __m256i v_10ffff = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0x10ffff);
  if (static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(_mm256_cmpeq_epi32(
          _mm256_max_epu32(running_max, v_10ffff), v_10ffff))) != 0xffffffff) {
    return std::make_pair(nullptr, utf8_output);
  }

  if (static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(forbidden_bytemask)) != 0) {
    return std::make_pair(nullptr, utf8_output);
  }

  return std::make_pair(buf, utf8_output);
}

std::pair<result, char *>
avx2_convert_utf32_to_utf8_with_errors(const char32_t *buf, size_t len,
                                       char *utf8_output) {
  const char32_t *end = buf + len;
  const char32_t *start = buf;

  const __m256i v_0000 = _mm256_setzero_si256();
  const __m256i v_ffff0000 = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0xffff0000);
  const __m256i v_ff80 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xff80);
  const __m256i v_f800 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xf800);
  const __m256i v_c080 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xc080);
  const __m256i v_7fffffff = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0x7fffffff);
  const __m256i v_10ffff = _mm256_set1_epi32((uint32_t)0x10ffff);

  const size_t safety_margin =
      12; // to avoid overruns, see issue
          // https://github.com/simdutf/simdutf/issues/92

  while (end - buf >= std::ptrdiff_t(16 + safety_margin)) {
    __m256i in = _mm256_loadu_si256((__m256i *)buf);
    __m256i nextin = _mm256_loadu_si256((__m256i *)buf + 1);
    // Check for too large input
    const __m256i max_input =
        _mm256_max_epu32(_mm256_max_epu32(in, nextin), v_10ffff);
    if (static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(
            _mm256_cmpeq_epi32(max_input, v_10ffff))) != 0xffffffff) {
      return std::make_pair(result(error_code::TOO_LARGE, buf - start),
                            utf8_output);
    }

    // Pack 32-bit UTF-32 code units to 16-bit UTF-16 code units with unsigned
    // saturation
    __m256i in_16 = _mm256_packus_epi32(_mm256_and_si256(in, v_7fffffff),
                                        _mm256_and_si256(nextin, v_7fffffff));
    in_16 = _mm256_permute4x64_epi64(in_16, 0b11011000);

    // Try to apply UTF-16 => UTF-8 routine on 256 bits
    // (haswell/avx2_convert_utf16_to_utf8.cpp)

    if (_mm256_testz_si256(in_16, v_ff80)) { // ASCII fast path!!!!
      // 1. pack the bytes
      const __m128i utf8_packed = _mm_packus_epi16(
          _mm256_castsi256_si128(in_16), _mm256_extractf128_si256(in_16, 1));
      // 2. store (16 bytes)
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_packed);
      // 3. adjust pointers
      buf += 16;
      utf8_output += 16;
      continue; // we are done for this round!
    }
    // no bits set above 7th bit
    const __m256i one_byte_bytemask =
        _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_ff80), v_0000);
    const uint32_t one_byte_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(one_byte_bytemask));

    // no bits set above 11th bit
    const __m256i one_or_two_bytes_bytemask =
        _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_f800), v_0000);
    const uint32_t one_or_two_bytes_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(one_or_two_bytes_bytemask));
    if (one_or_two_bytes_bitmask == 0xffffffff) {
      // 1. prepare 2-byte values
      // input 16-bit word : [0000|0aaa|aabb|bbbb] x 8
      // expected output   : [110a|aaaa|10bb|bbbb] x 8
      const __m256i v_1f00 = _mm256_set1_epi16((int16_t)0x1f00);
      const __m256i v_003f = _mm256_set1_epi16((int16_t)0x003f);

      // t0 = [000a|aaaa|bbbb|bb00]
      const __m256i t0 = _mm256_slli_epi16(in_16, 2);
      // t1 = [000a|aaaa|0000|0000]
      const __m256i t1 = _mm256_and_si256(t0, v_1f00);
      // t2 = [0000|0000|00bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t2 = _mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_003f);
      // t3 = [000a|aaaa|00bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t3 = _mm256_or_si256(t1, t2);
      // t4 = [110a|aaaa|10bb|bbbb]
      const __m256i t4 = _mm256_or_si256(t3, v_c080);

      // 2. merge ASCII and 2-byte codewords
      const __m256i utf8_unpacked =
          _mm256_blendv_epi8(t4, in_16, one_byte_bytemask);

      // 3. prepare bitmask for 8-bit lookup
      const uint32_t M0 = one_byte_bitmask & 0x55555555;
      const uint32_t M1 = M0 >> 7;
      const uint32_t M2 = (M1 | M0) & 0x00ff00ff;
      // 4. pack the bytes

      const uint8_t *row =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_utf8_bytes[uint8_t(M2)][0];
      const uint8_t *row_2 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_utf8_bytes[uint8_t(M2 >>
                                                                       16)][0];

      const __m128i shuffle = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row + 1));
      const __m128i shuffle_2 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row_2 + 1));

      const __m256i utf8_packed = _mm256_shuffle_epi8(
          utf8_unpacked, _mm256_setr_m128i(shuffle, shuffle_2));
      // 5. store bytes
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output,
                       _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_packed));
      utf8_output += row[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output,
                       _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_packed, 1));
      utf8_output += row_2[0];

      // 6. adjust pointers
      buf += 16;
      continue;
    }
    // Must check for overflow in packing
    const __m256i saturation_bytemask = _mm256_cmpeq_epi32(
        _mm256_and_si256(_mm256_or_si256(in, nextin), v_ffff0000), v_0000);
    const uint32_t saturation_bitmask =
        static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(saturation_bytemask));
    if (saturation_bitmask == 0xffffffff) {
      // case: code units from register produce either 1, 2 or 3 UTF-8 bytes

      // Check for illegal surrogate code units
      const __m256i v_d800 = _mm256_set1_epi16((uint16_t)0xd800);
      const __m256i forbidden_bytemask =
          _mm256_cmpeq_epi16(_mm256_and_si256(in_16, v_f800), v_d800);
      if (static_cast<uint32_t>(_mm256_movemask_epi8(forbidden_bytemask)) !=
          0x0) {
        return std::make_pair(result(error_code::SURROGATE, buf - start),
                              utf8_output);
      }

      const __m256i dup_even = _mm256_setr_epi16(
          0x0000, 0x0202, 0x0404, 0x0606, 0x0808, 0x0a0a, 0x0c0c, 0x0e0e,
          0x0000, 0x0202, 0x0404, 0x0606, 0x0808, 0x0a0a, 0x0c0c, 0x0e0e);

      /* In this branch we handle three cases:
        1. [0000|0000|0ccc|cccc] => [0ccc|cccc]                           -
        single UFT-8 byte
        2. [0000|0bbb|bbcc|cccc] => [110b|bbbb], [10cc|cccc]              - two
        UTF-8 bytes
        3. [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] => [1110|aaaa], [10bb|bbbb], [10cc|cccc] -
        three UTF-8 bytes

        We expand the input word (16-bit) into two code units (32-bit), thus
        we have room for four bytes. However, we need five distinct bit
        layouts. Note that the last byte in cases #2 and #3 is the same.

        We precompute byte 1 for case #1 and the common byte for cases #2 & #3
        in register t2.

        We precompute byte 1 for case #3 and -- **conditionally** -- precompute
        either byte 1 for case #2 or byte 2 for case #3. Note that they
        differ by exactly one bit.

        Finally from these two code units we build proper UTF-8 sequence, taking
        into account the case (i.e, the number of bytes to write).
      */
      /**
       * Given [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] our goal is to produce:
       * t2 => [0ccc|cccc] [10cc|cccc]
       * s4 => [1110|aaaa] ([110b|bbbb] OR [10bb|bbbb])
       */
#define simdutf_vec(x) _mm256_set1_epi16(static_cast<uint16_t>(x))
      // [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] => [bbcc|cccc|bbcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t0 = _mm256_shuffle_epi8(in_16, dup_even);
      // [bbcc|cccc|bbcc|cccc] => [00cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t1 = _mm256_and_si256(t0, simdutf_vec(0b0011111101111111));
      // [00cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc] => [10cc|cccc|0bcc|cccc]
      const __m256i t2 = _mm256_or_si256(t1, simdutf_vec(0b1000000000000000));

      // [aaaa|bbbb|bbcc|cccc] =>  [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bbcc]
      const __m256i s0 = _mm256_srli_epi16(in_16, 4);
      // [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bbcc] => [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bb00]
      const __m256i s1 = _mm256_and_si256(s0, simdutf_vec(0b0000111111111100));
      // [0000|aaaa|bbbb|bb00] => [00bb|bbbb|0000|aaaa]
      const __m256i s2 = _mm256_maddubs_epi16(s1, simdutf_vec(0x0140));
      // [00bb|bbbb|0000|aaaa] => [11bb|bbbb|1110|aaaa]
      const __m256i s3 = _mm256_or_si256(s2, simdutf_vec(0b1100000011100000));
      const __m256i m0 = _mm256_andnot_si256(one_or_two_bytes_bytemask,
                                             simdutf_vec(0b0100000000000000));
      const __m256i s4 = _mm256_xor_si256(s3, m0);
#undef simdutf_vec

      // 4. expand code units 16-bit => 32-bit
      const __m256i out0 = _mm256_unpacklo_epi16(t2, s4);
      const __m256i out1 = _mm256_unpackhi_epi16(t2, s4);

      // 5. compress 32-bit code units into 1, 2 or 3 bytes -- 2 x shuffle
      const uint32_t mask = (one_byte_bitmask & 0x55555555) |
                            (one_or_two_bytes_bitmask & 0xaaaaaaaa);
      // Due to the wider registers, the following path is less likely to be
      // useful.
      /*if(mask == 0) {
        // We only have three-byte code units. Use fast path.
        const __m256i shuffle =
      _mm256_setr_epi8(2,3,1,6,7,5,10,11,9,14,15,13,-1,-1,-1,-1,
      2,3,1,6,7,5,10,11,9,14,15,13,-1,-1,-1,-1); const __m256i utf8_0 =
      _mm256_shuffle_epi8(out0, shuffle); const __m256i utf8_1 =
      _mm256_shuffle_epi8(out1, shuffle);
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output, _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_0));
        utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output, _mm256_castsi256_si128(utf8_1));
        utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output,
      _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_0,1)); utf8_output += 12;
        _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i*)utf8_output,
      _mm256_extractf128_si256(utf8_1,1)); utf8_output += 12; buf += 16;
        continue;
      }*/
      const uint8_t mask0 = uint8_t(mask);
      const uint8_t *row0 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask0][0];
      const __m128i shuffle0 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row0 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_0 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_castsi256_si128(out0), shuffle0);

      const uint8_t mask1 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 8);
      const uint8_t *row1 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask1][0];
      const __m128i shuffle1 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row1 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_1 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_castsi256_si128(out1), shuffle1);

      const uint8_t mask2 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 16);
      const uint8_t *row2 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask2][0];
      const __m128i shuffle2 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row2 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_2 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_extractf128_si256(out0, 1), shuffle2);

      const uint8_t mask3 = static_cast<uint8_t>(mask >> 24);
      const uint8_t *row3 =
          &simdutf::tables::utf16_to_utf8::pack_1_2_3_utf8_bytes[mask3][0];
      const __m128i shuffle3 = _mm_loadu_si128((__m128i *)(row3 + 1));
      const __m128i utf8_3 =
          _mm_shuffle_epi8(_mm256_extractf128_si256(out1, 1), shuffle3);

      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_0);
      utf8_output += row0[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_1);
      utf8_output += row1[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_2);
      utf8_output += row2[0];
      _mm_storeu_si128((__m128i *)utf8_output, utf8_3);
      utf8_output += row3[0];
      buf += 16;
    } else {
      // case: at least one 32-bit word is larger than 0xFFFF <=> it will
      // produce four UTF-8 bytes. Let us do a scalar fallback. It may seem
      // wasteful to use scalar code, but being efficient with SIMD may require
      // large, non-trivial tables?
      size_t forward = 15;
      size_t k = 0;
      if (size_t(end - buf) < forward + 1) {
        forward = size_t(end - buf - 1);
      }
      for (; k < forward; k++) {
        uint32_t word = buf[k];
        if ((word & 0xFFFFFF80) == 0) { // 1-byte (ASCII)
          *utf8_output++ = char(word);
        } else if ((word & 0xFFFFF800) == 0) { // 2-byte
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 6) | 0b11000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        } else if ((word & 0xFFFF0000) == 0) { // 3-byte
          if (word >= 0xD800 && word <= 0xDFFF) {
            return std::make_pair(
                result(error_code::SURROGATE, buf - start + k), utf8_output);
          }
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 12) | 0b11100000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 6) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        } else { // 4-byte
          if (word > 0x10FFFF) {
            return std::make_pair(
                result(error_code::TOO_LARGE, buf - start + k), utf8_output);
          }
          *utf8_output++ = char((word >> 18) | 0b11110000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 12) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char(((word >> 6) & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
          *utf8_output++ = char((word & 0b111111) | 0b10000000);
        }
      }
      buf += k;
    }
  } // while

  return std::make_pair(result(error_code::SUCCESS, buf - start), utf8_output);
}