iconv_open(3)
NAME
iconv_open - allocate descriptor for character set conversion
SYNOPSIS
#include <iconv.h> iconv_t iconv_open(const char *tocode, const char *fromcode);
DESCRIPTION
The iconv_open() function allocates a conversion descriptor suitable
for converting byte sequences from character encoding fromcode to character encoding tocode.
The values permitted for fromcode and tocode and the supported combinations are system-dependent. For the GNU C library, the permitted values are listed by the iconv --list command, and all combinations of the
listed values are supported. Furthermore the GNU C library and the GNU
libiconv library support the following two suffixes:
- //TRANSLIT
- When the string "//TRANSLIT" is appended to tocode, transliteration is activated. This means that when a character cannot be represented in the target character set, it can be approximated through one or several similarly looking characters.
- //IGNORE
- When the string "//IGNORE" is appended to tocode, characters that cannot be represented in the target character set will be silently discarded.
- The resulting conversion descriptor can be used with iconv(3) any number of times. It remains valid until deallocated using iconv_close(3).
- A conversion descriptor contains a conversion state. After creation using iconv_open(), the state is in the initial state. Using iconv(3) modifies the descriptor's conversion state. (This implies that a conversion descriptor can not be used in multiple threads simultaneously.) To bring the state back to the initial state, use iconv(3) with NULL as inbuf argument.
RETURN VALUE
The iconv_open() function returns a freshly allocated conversion descriptor. In case of error, it sets errno and returns (iconv_t) -1.
ERRORS
The following error can occur, among others:
- EINVAL The conversion from fromcode to tocode is not supported by the
- implementation.
VERSIONS
This function is available in glibc since version 2.1.
CONFORMING TO
UNIX98, POSIX.1-2001.
SEE ALSO
iconv(1), iconv(3), iconv_close(3)
COLOPHON
- This page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.