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 input-
files are read and converted in turn; if no inputfile is given, the standard input is used. The converted text is printed to standard out-
put.
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 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 unconvertible characters.
iconv --list
lists the supported encodings.
SEE ALSO
iconv_open(3)
GNU
January 22, 2006 ICONV(1)