Iconv

iconv is a computer program and a standardized API used to convert between different character encodings.

iconv API

The iconv API is the standard programming interface for converting character strings from one character encoding to another in Unix-like operating systems.Initially appearing on the HP-UX operating system, it was standardized within XPG4 and is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS).

All recent Linux distributions contain a free implementation of iconv() as part of the GNU C Library which is the C library for current Linux systems. To use it, the GNU glibc locales need to be installed, which is provided as a separate package, named glibc-locale usually, and is normally installed by default.

Compatibility

Under Windows, the iconv binary (and thus, likely also the API) is provided by the Cygwin and GnuWin32 environments.

Iconv is also one of the libraries supported by PHP [http://www.php.net/iconv] (also under Windows using a DLL file), so it is possible to use iconv() from a PHP program.

ee also

*List of Unix programs
*International Components for Unicode

External links

* [http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-90130/iconv.3C.html extensive iconv() HP-UX manual page with example code]
* [http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/iconv.html iconv() OpenGroup Standards page]
* [http://www.iconv.org Online interface to the "iconv" program]
* [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=147704&package_id=193433 giconv] a graphical interface to a patched libiconv version that recodes ASMO449+ to UTF-8

Implementations of the iconv API:
* [http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/ GNU libiconv, a free iconv implementation] , licensed under the LGPL
** [http://www.zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml libiconv, compiled as .dll for Windows]
* [http://www.freshports.org/converters/iconv/ FreeBSD port of iconv]
* [http://citrus.bsdclub.org/ Citrus] , the NetBSD clib implementation, under NetBSD license (assumed)