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Name

iconv - code set conversion utility

Synopsis

iconv -f fromcode -t tocode [ file... ]

Availability

SUNWcsu

Description

The iconv command converts the characters or sequences of characters in file from one code set to another and writes the results to standard output. Should no conversion exist for a particular character then it is converted to the underscore ’_’ in the target codeset.

iconv will always convert to or from the ISO 8859-1 Latin alphabet No.1, from or to an ISO 646 ASCII variant codeset for a particular language. The ISO 8859-1 codeset will support the majority of 8 bit codesets. The conversions attempted by iconv accommodate the most commonly used languages.

The following table lists the supported conversions. 


    Code Set Conversions Supported

Code    Symbol    Target Code    Symbol    comment

ISO 646    646    ISO 8859-1    8859    US ASCII
ISO 646de    646de    ISO 8859-1    8859    German
ISO 646da    646da    ISO 8859-1    8859    Danish
ISO 646en    646en    ISO 8859-1    8859    English ASCII
ISO 646es    646es    ISO 8859-1    8859    Spanish
ISO 646fr    646fr    ISO 8859-1    8859    French
ISO 646it    646it    ISO 8859-1    8859    Italian
ISO 646sv    646sv    ISO 8859-1    8859    Swedish
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646    646    7 bit ASCII
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646de    646de    German
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646da    646da    Danish
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646en    646en    English ASCII
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646es    646es    Spanish
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646fr    646fr    French
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646it    646it    Italian
ISO 8859-1    8859    ISO 646sv    646sv    Swedish

The conversions are performed according to the tables found on iconv(5) .

Options

The following options are supported:
-f fromcode
Identifies the input code set.
-t tocode
Identifies the output code set.

Operands

The following operands are supported:
file
A path name of the input file to be translated. If file is omitted, the standard input is used.

Examples

The following converts the contents of file mail1 from code set 8859 to 646fr and stores the results in file mail.local. 


example% iconv -f 8859 -t 646fr mail1 > mail.local

Environment

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of iconv: LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES , and NLSPATH .

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:

  1. upon successful completion
  2. an error has occurred.

Files

/usr/lib/iconv/*.so
conversion modules
/usr/lib/iconv/*.t
conversion tables
/usr/lib/iconv/iconv_data
list of conversions supported by conversion tables

See Also

iconv(3) , environ(5) , iconv(5)

Notes

iconv can use conversion modules (/usr/lib/iconv/*.so) or conversion tables (/usr/lib/iconv/*.t). If a conversion module and a conversion table both exist for a particular codeset conversion, iconv uses the conversion module.

Refer to the /usr/share/man/man5/iconv_locale.5 manual page in the Asian localized releases for information on which codeset conversions are supported. For example, the command

% man -s 5 iconv_ja

would display the manual page describing the codeset conversions that are supported for the Japanese locale.

Note that the iconv_locale.5 manual page may not exist in every localized release. Also, the iconv_locale.5 manual page does not exist in the U. S. (non-localized) release.

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