iconv

Iconv is a command line tool used for character encoding conversion. It exists in most Unix-like operating systems, including Linux and macOS. The name "iconv" stands for "character set conversion." It is typically used to convert files or text from one character encoding to another.

Iconv supports a wide range of character encodings, including ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO-8859, and many more. It can be used to convert files in multiple languages, allowing for seamless interoperability between different encoding schemes.

The basic syntax of iconv command involves specifying the input encoding, output encoding, and the input file. It can also be used to convert text piped from other command line tools.

Iconv provides options to handle different scenarios, such as transliteration, which replaces characters that are not present in the target encoding with similar-looking characters. It can also ignore or replace invalid or unmappable characters during conversion.

Apart from file conversion, iconv can also be used to transliterate or convert characters interactively in the command line interface. This allows for quick and convenient encoding adjustments on the fly.

Iconv is primarily a command line tool, but many programming languages, like C, Python, Ruby, and PHP, have native bindings for iconv, enabling developers to perform character encoding conversions within their programs.

Iconv has a long history and is based on the widely-used library glibc, making it a reliable and well-tested tool for handling character encoding conversions.

Overall, iconv is a versatile and widely-used command line tool for converting files or text from one character encoding to another, making it an essential tool for handling multilingual or cross-encoding scenarios.