NAME

       uniname - Name the characters in a Unicode text file

SYNOPSIS

       uniname ([option flags]) (<file name>)

       If no input file name is supplied, uniname reads from the standard input.

DESCRIPTION

       uniname names the characters in a Unicode text file.  For each character, uniname defaults
       to printing the character offset, the byte offset, the hexadecimal UTF-32 character  code,
       the  encoding  as  a  sequence  of hex byte values, the glyph, and the character's Unicode
       name. Command line flags allow undesired information to be suppressed.  Glyphs that do not
       display nicely, such as control characters and spaces, are not displayed.  For the Latin-1
       control characters, whose official Unicode name is "control",  the  real  name  is  given.
       Character and byte offsets both start from 0.

       Where  a  character  does  not  have  a  unique  Unicode name, as is the case with Chinese
       characters, the character is identified as "character in such-and-such a range".  However,
       if  the  character is a Chinese character listed in Nelson's dictionary, the Nelson number
       is supplied.

       By default, input is expected to be UTF-8. Native order UTF-32 may be  specified  via  the
       command  line  flag If invalid UTF8 is encountered, an explanation is printed as to why it
       is invalid.  Except when in validation mode, surrogate codepoints are reported like proper
       characters although UTF-8 containing surrogates is technically invalid.  -q.

COMMAND LINE FLAGS

       -A     Skip ASCII whitespace characters.

       -a     Skip ASCII characters.

       -B     Skip characters within the Basic Multilingual Plane.

       -b     Suppress printing of byte offset.

       -c     Suppress printing of character offset.

       -e     Suppress printing of encoding.

       -g     Suppress printing of glyph.

       -h     Print usage information.

       -l     Print line number.

       -n     Suppress printing of Unicode name.

       -p     Suppress printing of headers every screenfull.

       -q     Input is native order UTF-32.

       -r     Print  Unicode range.  The ranges reported include both official Unicode ranges and
              the constructed language ranges within the Private Use Areas  registered  with  the
              Conscript Unicode Registry (http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/).

       -s <character offset>
              Skip to specified character offset.

       -S <byte offset>
              Skip  to  specified byte offset. Note that even if the file consists of well-formed
              Unicode there is no guarantee that the byte sequence beginning at an arbitrary byte
              will  be  valid  Unicode.  This  option  is  provided  for use where other programs
              generate only byte offsets or where it is necessary to skip over  damaged  Unicode.
              In most circumstances use of a character offset will be more appropriate. If a byte
              offset is used, the character offsets shown are with respect to  the  beginning  of
              the section of the file examined rather than the beginning of the file.

       -u     Suppress printing of UTF32 code.

       -V     Validate  the input. In this case, nothing is done other than determine whether the
              input is valid UTF-8 Unicode. If it is, no output is produced and the program exits
              with status 0. If invalid UTF-8 is encountered, the program reports the location of
              the first invalid UTF-8 encountered, explains why it is  invalid,  and  exits  with
              status  1.  For purposes of validation, surrogate codepoints are considered invalid
              as per the Unicode standard.

       -v     Print version information.

SEE ALSO

       unidesc

REFERENCES

       Unicode Standard, version 5.1

AUTHOR

       Bill Poser
       billposer@alum.mit.edu

LICENSE

       GNU General Public License

                                            June, 2009                                 uniname(1)