Iconv

iconv
Original author(s)	Hewlett-Packard
Developer(s)	Various open-source and commercial developers
Repository	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/libiconv.git
Operating system	Unix, Unix-like, Microsoft Windows, IBM i
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	libiconv: LGPL; iconv: GPL; win-iconv: Public domain

Short description: Standard UNIX utility

In Unix and Unix-like operating systems, iconv (an abbreviation of internationalization conversion)^[2] is a command-line program^[3] and a standardized application programming interface (API)^[4] used to convert between different character encodings. "It can convert from any of these encodings to any other, through Unicode conversion."^[5]

History

Initially appearing on the HP-UX operating system,^[6]iconv() as well as the utility was standardized within XPG4 and is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS).

Implementations

Most Linux distributions provide an implementation, either from the GNU Standard C Library (included since version 2.1, February 1999), or the more traditional GNU libiconv, for systems based on other Standard C Libraries.

The iconv function^[7] on both is licensed as LGPL, so it is linkable with closed source applications.

Unlike the libraries, the iconv utility is licensed under GPL in both implementations.^[8] The GNU libiconv implementation is portable, and can be used on various UNIX-like and non-UNIX systems. Version 0.3 dates from December 1999.

The uconv utility from International Components for Unicode provides an iconv-compatible command-line syntax for transcoding.

Most BSD systems use NetBSD's implementation, first appeared in December 2004.

Support

Currently, over a hundred different character encodings are supported.^[5]

Ports

Under Microsoft Windows, the iconv library and the utility is provided by GNU's libiconv found in Cygwin^[9] and GnuWin32^[10] environments; there is also a "purely Win32" implementation called "win-iconv" that uses Windows' built-in routines for conversion.^[11] The iconv function is also available for many programming languages.

The iconv command has also been ported to the IBM i operating system.^[12]

Usage

stdin can be converted from ISO-8859-1 to current locale and output to stdout using:^[13]

iconv -f iso-8859-1

An input file infile can be converted from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 and output to output file outfile using:

iconv -f iso-8859-1 -t utf-8 <infile> -o <outfile>

References

External links

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Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconv. Read more

[1] "win-iconv/readme.txt at master · win-iconv/win-iconv · GitHub". https://github.com/win-iconv/win-iconv/blob/master/readme.txt.

[2] "R: Convert Character Vector between Encodings". http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su07/R/html/base/html/iconv.html.

[3] "iconv". http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/iconv.html.

[4] "iconv". http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/iconv.html.

[gnulibiconv-5] 5.0 ^5.1 "libiconv - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)". https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/.

[6] "iconv(3C)". http://docstore.mik.ua/manuals/hp-ux/en/B2355-60130/iconv.3C.html.

[7] "glibc: iconv/iconv.c". https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=iconv/iconv.c. ^{[yes|permanent dead link|dead link}}]}

[8] "glibc: iconv/iconv_prog.c". https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=iconv/iconv_prog.c. ^{[yes|permanent dead link|dead link}}]}

[cygwin-libiconv-search-9] "Cygwin Package Search: libiconv". https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=libiconv.

[gnuwin32-libiconv-10] "LibIconv for Windows". http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libiconv.htm.

[win-iconv-11] "win32-iconv". https://github.com/win-iconv/win-iconv.

[12] IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (in en). https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_74/rzahz/rzahzpdf.pdf?view=kc.

[13] "IBM Knowledge Center". http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_53/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds3/iconv.htm.

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