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Chapter 9. Advanced Topics

9.1. Using the iconv tool

The iconv tool converts the encoding of characters in a file from one coded character set to another. The result is written to standard output unless otherwise specified by the --output option. When doing conversions it is always a good idea to backup ones original files first.
The following are some useful examples of using the iconv tool.
  • List character-set encoding names: 
    iconv --list
  • Convert ISO8859-1 (legacy Western European) content to utf-8 
    iconv -f ISO_8859-1 -t UTF-8 oldfile > newfile
    In the above example, the oldfile is encoded in ISO8859-1, while the "newfile" will be encoded in UTF-8.
  • Similarly to convert EUCJP content to UTF-8 
    iconv -f EUCJP -t UTF-8 oldfile > newfile
See the iconv (1) manpage for more details.