Ubuntu Manpage: iconv_open - allocate descriptor for character set conversion

NAME

       iconv_open - allocate descriptor for character set conversion

LIBRARY

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

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

RETURN VALUE

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

ERRORS

       The following error can occur, among others:

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

ATTRIBUTES

       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
       ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
       │ Interface                                                            │ Attribute     │ Value          │
       ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
       │ iconv_open()                                                         │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │
       └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘

STANDARDS

       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY

       glibc 2.1.  POSIX.1-2001, SUSv2.