PICONV(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PICONV(1)
NAME
piconv -- iconv(1), reinvented in perl
SYNOPSIS
piconv [-f from_encoding] [-t to_encoding]
[-p|--perlqq|--htmlcref|--xmlcref] [-C N|-c] [-D] [-S scheme]
[-s string|file...]
piconv -l
piconv -r encoding_alias
piconv -h
DESCRIPTION
piconv is perl version of iconv, a character encoding converter widely
available for various Unixen today. This script was primarily a
technology demonstrator for Perl 5.8.0, but you can use piconv in the
place of iconv for virtually any case.
piconv converts the character encoding of either STDIN or files
specified in the argument and prints out to STDOUT.
Here is the list of options. Some options can be in short format (-f)
or long (--from) one.
-f,--from from_encoding
Specifies the encoding you are converting from. Unlike iconv, this
option can be omitted. In such cases, the current locale is used.
-t,--to to_encoding
Specifies the encoding you are converting to. Unlike iconv, this
option can be omitted. In such cases, the current locale is used.
Therefore, when both -f and -t are omitted, piconv just acts like
cat.
-s,--string string
uses string instead of file for the source of text.
-l,--list
Lists all available encodings, one per line, in case-insensitive
order. Note that only the canonical names are listed; many aliases
exist. For example, the names are case-insensitive, and many
standard and common aliases work, such as "latin1" for
"ISO-8859-1", or "ibm850" instead of "cp850", or "winlatin1" for
"cp1252". See Encode::Supported for a full discussion.
-r,--resolve encoding_alias
Resolve encoding_alias to Encode canonical encoding name.
-C,--check N
Check the validity of the stream if N = 1. When N = -1, something
interesting happens when it encounters an invalid character.
-c Same as "-C 1".
-p,--perlqq
Transliterate characters missing in encoding to \x{HHHH} where HHHH
is the hexadecimal Unicode code point.
--htmlcref
Transliterate characters missing in encoding to &#NNN; where NNN is
the decimal Unicode code point.
--xmlcref
Transliterate characters missing in encoding to &#xHHHH; where HHHH
is the hexadecimal Unicode code point.
-h,--help
Show usage.
-D,--debug
Invokes debugging mode. Primarily for Encode hackers.
-S,--scheme scheme
Selects which scheme is to be used for conversion. Available
schemes are as follows:
from_to
Uses Encode::from_to for conversion. This is the default.
decode_encode
Input strings are decode()d then encode()d. A straight two-
step implementation.
perlio
The new perlIO layer is used. NI-S' favorite.
You should use this option if you are using UTF-16 and others
which linefeed is not $/.
Like the -D option, this is also for Encode hackers.
SEE ALSO
iconv(1) locale(3) Encode Encode::Supported Encode::Alias PerlIO
perl v5.38.2 2025-07-25 PICONV(1)
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