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.  -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.

       -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

                                          February, 2009                               uniname(1)