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 encod-
       ing 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  charac-
              ter  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 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.  (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 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project,  and  information  about
       reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU                                                        2008-08-11                                              ICONV_OPEN(3)