ICONV_OPEN(3)                       Linux Programmer's Manual                       ICONV_OPEN(3)



NAME
       iconv_open - allocate descriptor for character set conversion

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 repre‐
              sented 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.   (This  implies  that  a conversion descriptor can not be used in multiple threads
       simultaneously.)  To bring the state back to the initial state, use iconv(3) with NULL  as
       inbuf argument.

RETURN VALUE
       The  iconv_open()  function returns a freshly allocated conversion descriptor.  In case of
       error, it sets errno and returns (iconv_t) -1.

ERRORS
       The following error can occur, among others:

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

VERSIONS
       This function is available in glibc since version 2.1.

CONFORMING TO
       UNIX98, POSIX.1-2001.

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

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project.  A  description  of  the
       project,  information  about  reporting  bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
       found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU                                         2008-08-11                              ICONV_OPEN(3)