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 encoding fromcode to char-
       acter encoding tocode.

       The values permitted for fromcode and tocode and the supported combina-
       tions are system-dependent.  For the GNU C library, the permitted  val-
       ues 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, translitera-
	      tion is activated.  This means that when a character  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  num-
       ber 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.  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.

ATTRIBUTES
       For  an	explanation  of	 the  terms  used   in	 this	section,   see
       attributes(7).

       +-------------+---------------+----------------+
       |Interface    | Attribute     | Value	      |
       +-------------+---------------+----------------+
       |iconv_open() | Thread safety | MT-Safe locale |
       +-------------+---------------+----------------+

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SUSv2.

SEE ALSO
       iconv(1), iconv(3), iconv_close(3)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 4.10 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
       latest	  version     of     this    page,    can    be	   found    at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU				  2015-08-08			 ICONV_OPEN(3)