iconv(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | STANDARDS | HISTORY | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

iconv(1)                 General Commands Manual                iconv(1)

NAME         top

       iconv - convert text from one character encoding to another

SYNOPSIS         top

       iconv [options] [-f from-encoding] [-t to-encoding]
       [inputfile]...

DESCRIPTION         top

       The iconv program reads in text in one encoding and outputs the
       text in another encoding.  If no input files are given, or if it
       is given as a dash (-), iconv reads from standard input.  If no
       output file is given, iconv writes to standard output.

       If no from-encoding is given, the default is derived from the
       current locale's character encoding.  If no to-encoding is given,
       the default is derived from the current locale's character
       encoding.

OPTIONS         top

       --from-code=from-encoding
       -f from-encoding
              Use from-encoding for input characters.

       --to-code=to-encoding
       -t to-encoding
              Use to-encoding for output characters.

              If the string //IGNORE is appended to to-encoding,
              characters that cannot be converted are discarded and an
              error is printed after conversion.

              If the string //TRANSLIT is appended to to-encoding,
              characters being converted are transliterated when needed
              and possible.  This means that when a character cannot be
              represented in the target character set, it can be
              approximated through one or several similar looking
              characters.  Characters that are outside of the target
              character set and cannot be transliterated are replaced
              with a question mark (?) in the output.

       --list
       -l     List all known character set encodings.

       -c     Silently discard characters that cannot be converted
              instead of terminating when encountering such characters.

       --output=outputfile
       -o outputfile
              Use outputfile for output.

       --silent
       -s     This option is ignored; it is provided only for
              compatibility.

       --verbose
              Print progress information on standard error when
              processing multiple files.

       --help
       -?     Print a usage summary and exit.

       --usage
              Print a short usage summary and exit.

       --version
       -V     Print the version number, license, and disclaimer of
              warranty for iconv.

EXIT STATUS         top

       Zero on success, nonzero on errors.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       Internally, the iconv program uses the iconv(3) function which in
       turn uses gconv modules (dynamically loaded shared libraries) to
       convert to and from a character set.  Before calling iconv(3),
       the iconv program must first allocate a conversion descriptor
       using iconv_open(3).  The operation of the latter function is
       influenced by the setting of the GCONV_PATH environment variable:

       •  If GCONV_PATH is not set, iconv_open(3) loads the system gconv
          module configuration cache file created by iconvconfig(8) and
          then, based on the configuration, loads the gconv modules
          needed to perform the conversion.  If the system gconv module
          configuration cache file is not available then the system
          gconv module configuration file is used.

       •  If GCONV_PATH is defined (as a colon-separated list of
          pathnames), the system gconv module configuration cache is not
          used.  Instead, iconv_open(3) first tries to load the
          configuration files by searching the directories in GCONV_PATH
          in order, followed by the system default gconv module
          configuration file.  If a directory does not contain a gconv
          module configuration file, any gconv modules that it may
          contain are ignored.  If a directory contains a gconv module
          configuration file and it is determined that a module needed
          for this conversion is available in the directory, then the
          needed module is loaded from that directory, the order being
          such that the first suitable module found in GCONV_PATH is
          used.  This allows users to use custom modules and even
          replace system-provided modules by providing such modules in
          GCONV_PATH directories.

FILES         top

       /usr/lib/gconv
              Usual default gconv module path.

       /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules
              Usual system default gconv module configuration file.

       /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules.cache
              Usual system gconv module configuration cache.

       Depending on the architecture, the above files may instead be
       located at directories with the path prefix /usr/lib64.

STANDARDS         top

       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY         top

       POSIX.1-2001.

EXAMPLES         top

       Convert text from the ISO/IEC 8859-15 character encoding to
       UTF-8:

           $ iconv -f ISO-8859-15 -t UTF-8 < input.txt > output.txt

       The next example converts from UTF-8 to ASCII, transliterating
       when possible:

           $ echo abc ß α € àḃç | iconv -f UTF-8 -t ASCII//TRANSLIT
           abc ss ? EUR abc

SEE ALSO         top

       locale(1), uconv(1), iconv(3), nl_langinfo(3), charsets(7),
       iconvconfig(8)

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                       iconv(1)

Pages that refer to this page: manconv(1)man-recode(1)uconv(1)iconv_open(3)charmap(5)locale(5)charsets(7)locale(7)iconvconfig(8)