iconv(1)                                              General Commands Manual                                              iconv(1)

NAME
       iconv - convert text from one character encoding to another

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

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

       -t to-encoding, --to-code=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  can‐
              not be transliterated are replaced with a question mark (?) in the output.

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

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

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

       -s, --silent
              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.

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

EXIT STATUS
       Zero on success, nonzero on errors.

ENVIRONMENT
       Internally,  the  iconv  program  uses the iconv(3) function which in turn uses gconv modules (dynamically loaded shared li‐
       braries) to convert to and from a character set.  Before calling iconv(3), the iconv program must first allocate  a  conver‐
       sion  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 mod‐
          ule 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 configura‐
          tion 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
       /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
       POSIX.1-2001.

EXAMPLES
       Convert text from the ISO 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
       locale(1), uconv(1), iconv(3), nl_langinfo(3), charsets(7), iconvconfig(8)

Linux man-pages 6.03                                         2023-02-05                                                    iconv(1)