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[1]

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, which first appeared in December 2004.

Support

Currently, over a hundred different character encodings are supported in the GNU variant.^[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>

See also

• uconv
• luit
• List of Unix commands
• International Components for Unicode

References

1. "win-iconv/readme.txt at master · win-iconv/win-iconv · GitHub". GitHub.
2. "R: Convert Character Vector between Encodings". astrostatistics.psu.edu. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
3. "iconv". pubs.opengroup.org. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
4. "iconv". www.opengroup.org. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
5. "libiconv - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)". www.gnu.org. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
6. "iconv(3C)". docstore.mik.ua. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
7. "glibc: iconv/iconv.c". Retrieved 30 November 2016.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
8. "glibc: iconv/iconv_prog.c". Retrieved 30 November 2016.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
9. "Cygwin Package Search: libiconv". Archived from the original on 30 November 2016. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
10. "LibIconv for Windows". gnuwin32.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
11. "win32-iconv". GitHub. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
12. IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (PDF). IBM. Retrieved 5 September 2020.
13. "IBM Knowledge Center". www-01.ibm.com. Retrieved 21 April 2018.

External links

• iconv() OpenGroup Standards page
• GNU libiconv, code
• win_iconv