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

2025-10-12 | perl v5.40.1