Editing Iconv

{{short description|Standard UNIX utility}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Lowercase|title=iconv}}
{{Infobox software
| name = iconv
| logo = 
| screenshot = 
| screenshot size = 
| caption = 
| author = [[Hewlett-Packard]]
| developer = Various [[open-source software|open-source]] and [[commercial software|commercial]] developers
| released = 
| latest release version = 
| latest release date = 
| repo = https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/libiconv.git
| operating system = [[Unix]], [[Unix-like]], [[Microsoft Windows]], [[IBM i]]
| platform = [[Cross-platform]]
| genre = [[Command (computing)|Command]]
| license = libiconv: [[LGPL]]<br/>iconv: [[GPL]]<br />win-iconv: [[Public domain]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://github.com/win-iconv/win-iconv/blob/master/readme.txt |title = win-iconv/readme.txt at master · win-iconv/win-iconv · GitHub| website=[[GitHub]] }}</ref>
| website = 
}}
In [[Unix]] and [[Unix-like]] operating systems, '''iconv''' (an abbreviation of [[Internationalization and localization|internationalization]] conversion)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://astrostatistics.psu.edu/su07/R/html/base/html/iconv.html|title=R: Convert Character Vector between Encodings|website=astrostatistics.psu.edu|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref> is a command-line [[computer program|program]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/iconv.html|title=iconv|website=pubs.opengroup.org|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref> and a standardized [[application programming interface]] (API)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/iconv.html|title=iconv|website=www.opengroup.org|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref> used to convert between different [[character encoding]]s. "It can convert from any of these encodings to any other, through Unicode conversion."<ref name="gnulibiconv">{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/|title=libiconv - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)|website=www.gnu.org|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref>

== History ==
Initially appearing on the [[HP-UX]] operating system,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docstore.mik.ua/manuals/hp-ux/en/B2355-60130/iconv.3C.html|title=iconv(3C)|website=docstore.mik.ua|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref><code>iconv()</code> as well as the utility was standardized within [[X/Open Portability Guide|XPG4]] and is part of the [[Single UNIX Specification]] (SUS).

== Implementations ==
Most [[Linux distribution]]s provide an implementation, either from the [[GNU]] Standard C Library (included since version 2.1, February 1999), or the more traditional GNU <code>libiconv</code>, for systems based on other Standard C Libraries.

The <code>iconv</code> function<ref>{{cite web|title=glibc: iconv/iconv.c|url=https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=iconv/iconv.c|access-date=30 November 2016}}{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> on both is licensed as [[LGPL]], so it is linkable with closed source applications.

Unlike the libraries, the <code>iconv</code> utility is licensed under [[GPL]] in both implementations.<ref>{{cite web|title=glibc: iconv/iconv_prog.c|url=https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=iconv/iconv_prog.c|access-date=30 November 2016}}{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
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.

The [[musl]] C library implements the <code>iconv</code> function with support for all encodings specified by the [[WHATWG]] Encoding Standard.

=== Support ===
Currently, over a hundred different character encodings are supported in the GNU variant.<ref name="gnulibiconv"/>

=== Ports ===
Under [[Microsoft Windows]], the iconv library and the utility is provided by GNU's libiconv found in [[Cygwin]]<ref name="cygwin-libiconv-search">{{cite web|title=Cygwin Package Search: libiconv |url=https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=libiconv |access-date=30 November 2016 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20161130001530/https://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=libiconv |archive-date=30 November 2016 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref><!-- Search result pages are perishable. --> and [[GnuWin32]]<ref name="gnuwin32-libiconv">{{cite web|url=http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libiconv.htm|title=LibIconv for Windows|website=gnuwin32.sourceforge.net|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref> environments; there is also a "purely Win32" implementation called "win-iconv" that uses Windows' built-in routines for conversion.<ref name="win-iconv">{{cite web|title=win32-iconv|url=https://github.com/win-iconv/win-iconv|website=GitHub|access-date=30 November 2016}}</ref> The iconv function is also available for many programming languages.

The {{Mono|iconv}} command has also been ported to the [[IBM i]] operating system.<ref>{{cite web |title=IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell |language=en |author=IBM |website=[[IBM]] |author-link=IBM |url=https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_74/rzahz/rzahzpdf.pdf?view=kc |access-date=2020-09-05 }}</ref>

== Usage ==
<code>[[stdin]]</code> can be converted from [[ISO/IEC 8859-1|ISO-8859-1]] to current locale and output to <code>[[stdout]]</code> using:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_53/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds3/iconv.htm|title=IBM Knowledge Center|website=www-01.ibm.com|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref>

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
iconv -f iso-8859-1
</syntaxhighlight>

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

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
iconv -f iso-8859-1 -t utf-8 <infile> -o <outfile>
</syntaxhighlight>

== See also ==
* [[uconv]]
* [[luit]]
* [[List of Unix commands]]
* [[International Components for Unicode]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Wikibooks|Guide to Unix|Commands}}
* [http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/iconv.html iconv() OpenGroup Standards page]
* [https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/ GNU libiconv], [https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=libiconv.git code]
* [https://code.google.com/p/win-iconv/downloads/list win_iconv]

{{Unix commands}}

[[Category:HP software]]
[[Category:Unix text processing utilities]]
[[Category:Unix SUS2008 utilities]]
[[Category:IBM i Qshell commands]]
[[Category:C POSIX library]]

{{Unix-stub}}