iconv_open(3)             Library Functions Manual             iconv_open(3)

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 combi‐
       nations  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,  translit‐
              eration is activated.  This means that when a character cannot
              be represented in the target character set, it can be approxi‐
              mated 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 ar‐
       gument.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, iconv_open() returns a freshly allocated  conversion  de‐
       scriptor.   On failure, it returns (iconv_t) -1 and sets errno to in‐
       dicate 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  attrib‐
       utes(7).
       ┌──────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐
       │ Interface                        │ Attribute     │ Value          │
       ├──────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
       │ iconv_open()                     │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe locale │
       └──────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘

STANDARDS
       POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY
       glibc 2.1.  POSIX.1-2001, SUSv2.

SEE ALSO
       iconv(1), iconv(3), iconv_close(3)

Linux man-pages 6.7              2023-10-31                    iconv_open(3)