iconv
ICONV(1) Linux Programmer's Manual ICONV(1)
NAME
iconv - character set conversion
SYNOPSIS
iconv [OPTION...] [-f encoding] [-t encoding] [inputfile ...]
iconv -l
DESCRIPTION
The iconv program converts text from one encoding to another encoding.
More precisely, it converts from the encoding given for the -f option to
the encoding given for the -t option. Either of these encodings defaults
to the encoding of the current locale. All the inputfiles are read and
converted in turn; if no inputfile is given, the standard input is used.
The converted text is printed to standard output.
The encodings permitted are system dependent. For the libiconv
implementation, they are listed in the iconv_open(3) manual page.
Options controlling the input and output format:
-f encoding, --from-code=encoding
Specifies the encoding of the input.
-t encoding, --to-code=encoding
Specifies the encoding of the output.
Options controlling conversion problems:
-c When this option is given, characters that cannot be converted are
silently discarded, instead of leading to a conversion error.
--unicode-subst=formatstring
When this option is given, Unicode characters that cannot be
represented in the target encoding are replaced with a placeholder
string that is constructed from the given formatstring, applied to
the Unicode code point. The formatstring must be a format string
in the same format as for the printf command or the printf()
function, taking either no argument or exactly one unsigned
integer argument.
--byte-subst=formatstring
When this option is given, bytes in the input that are not valid
in the source encoding are replaced with a placeholder string that
is constructed from the given formatstring, applied to the byte's
value. The formatstring must be a format string in the same format
as for the printf command or the printf() function, taking either
no argument or exactly one unsigned integer argument.
--widechar-subst=formatstring
When this option is given, wide characters in the input that are
not valid in the source encoding are replaced with a placeholder
string that is constructed from the given formatstring, applied to
the byte's value. The formatstring must be a format string in the
same format as for the printf command or the printf() function,
taking either no argument or exactly one unsigned integer
argument.
Options controlling error output:
-s, --silent
When this option is given, error messages about invalid or
unconvertible characters are omitted, but the actual converted
text is unaffected.
The iconv -l or iconv --list command lists the names of the supported
encodings, in a system dependent format. For the libiconv implementation,
the names are printed in upper case, separated by whitespace, and alias
names of an encoding are listed on the same line as the encoding itself.
EXAMPLES
iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8
converts input from the old West-European encoding ISO-8859-1 to
Unicode.
iconv -f KOI8-R --byte-subst="<0x%x>"
--unicode-subst="<U+%04X>"
converts input from the old Russian encoding KOI8-R to the locale
encoding, substituting an angle bracket notation with hexadecimal
numbers for invalid bytes and for valid but unconvertible
characters.
iconv --list
lists the supported encodings.
SEE ALSO
iconv_open(3)
GNU January 22, 2006 ICONV(1)