ICONV_OPEN(3) Linux Programmer's Manual ICONV_OPEN(3)NAMEiconv_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 char‐
acter encoding tocode.
The values permitted for fromcode and tocode and the supported combina‐
tions are system-dependent. For the GNU C library, the permitted val‐
ues 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, translitera‐
tion 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 num‐
ber 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 con‐
version 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 ALSOiconv(1), iconv(3), iconv_close(3)COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.58 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/.
GNU 2008-08-11 ICONV_OPEN(3)
