Red Hat Summit Red Hat SummitSupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact

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: Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap 
    iconv --list
  • Convert ISO8859-1 (legacy Western European) content to utf-8 Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap 
    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 Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap 
    iconv -f EUCJP -t UTF-8 oldfile > newfile
See the iconv (1) manpage for more details.
Back to top
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2025 Red Hat, Inc.