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 imple-
mentation, 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 place-
holder 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 argu-
ment.
--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() func-
tion, 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 implementa-
tion, 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 uncon-
vertible characters.
iconv --list
lists the supported encodings.
SEE ALSO
iconv_open(3)
GNU January 22, 2006 iconv(1)
Mac OS X 10.9 - Generated Tue Oct 15 06:20:39 CDT 2013