Manpages - iconv_open.3

iconv_open - allocate descriptor for character set conversion

  #include <iconv.h>

  iconv_t iconv_open(const char *tocode, const char *fromcode);

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. To bring the state back to the initial state, use *iconv*(3) with NULL as inbuf argument.

On success, *iconv_open*() returns a freshly allocated conversion descriptor. On failure, it returns (iconv_t) -1 and sets errno to indicate the error.

The following error can occur, among others:

EINVAL

The conversion from fromcode to tocode is not supported by the implementation.

This function is available in glibc since version 2.1.

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see *attributes*(7).

POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SUSv2.

*iconv*(1), *iconv*(3), *iconv_close*(3)

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