ICONV(1) General Commands Manual ICONV(1)

iconv — codeset conversion utility

iconv [-cs] -f from_name -t to_name [file ...]

iconv -f from_name [-cs] [-t to_name] [file ...]

iconv -t to_name [-cs] [-f from_name] [file ...]

iconv -l

The iconv utility converts the codeset of file (or from standard input if no file is specified) from codeset from_name to codeset to_name and outputs the converted text on standard output.

The following options are available:

Prevent output of any invalid characters. By default, iconv outputs an “invalid character” specified by the to_name codeset when it encounts a character which is valid in the from_name codeset but does not have a corresponding character in the to_name codeset.
Specifies the source codeset name as from_name.
Lists available codeset names. Note that not all combinations of from_name and to_name are valid.
Silent. By default, iconv outputs the number of “invalid characters” to standard error if they exist. This option prevents this behaviour.
Specifies the destination codeset name as to_name.

The iconv utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Convert file.txt from IBM273 to UTF-8 and save the result to converted.txt:

iconv -f IBM273 -t UTF-8 file.txt > converted.txt

mkcsmapper(1), mkesdb(1), iconv(3)

iconv conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

iconv first appeared in NetBSD 2.0, and made its appearance in FreeBSD 9.0.

October 22, 2009 macOS 15.2