NAME

       utf8trans - Transliterate UTF-8 characters according to a table

SYNOPSIS

       utf8trans charmap [file]...

DESCRIPTION

       utf8trans transliterates characters in the specified files (or standard input, if they are not specified)
       and writes the output to standard output. All input and output is in the UTF-8 encoding.

       This program is usually used to render characters in Unicode text files as some markup escapes  or  ASCII
       transliterations.   (It  is  not  intended  for  general charset conversions.)  It provides functionality
       similar to the character maps in XSLT 2.0 (XML Stylesheet Language – Transformations, version 2.0).

OPTIONS

       -m, --modify
              Modifies the given files in-place with their transliterated  output,  instead  of  sending  it  to
              standard output.

              This option is useful for efficient transliteration of many files at once.

       --help Show brief usage information and exit.

       --version
              Show version and exit.

USAGE

       The  translation is done according to the rules in the ‘character map’, named in the file charmap. It has
       the following format:

       1.  Each line represents a translation entry, except  for  blank  lines  and  comment  lines,  which  are
           ignored.

       2.  Any amount of whitespace (space or tab) may precede the start of an entry.

       3.  Comment lines begin with #.  Everything on the same line is ignored.

       4.  Each  entry consists of the Unicode codepoint of the character to translate, in hexadecimal, followed
           one space or tab, followed by the translation string, up to the end of the line.

       5.  The translation string is taken literally, including any leading  and  trailing  spaces  (except  the
           delimeter between the codepoint and the translation string), and all types of characters. The newline
           at the end is not included.

       The above format is intended to be restrictive, to keep utf8trans simple. But if a  XML-based  format  is
       desired, there is a xmlcharmap2utf8trans script that comes with the docbook2X distribution, that converts
       character maps in XSLT 2.0 format to the utf8trans format.

LIMITATIONS

       • utf8trans does not work with  binary  files,  because  malformed  UTF-8  sequences  in  the  input  are
         substituted  with  U+FFFD characters. However, null characters in the input are handled correctly. This
         limitation may be removed in the future.

       • There is no way to include a newline or null in the substitution string.

AUTHOR

       Steve Cheng <stevecheng@users.sourceforge.net>.