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)