ICONV - Charset Conversion Library. Version 1.0
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This distribution contains the library (libiconv.a and .so) for conversion between various charsets (character encoding schemes) and the command line utility (iconv).

Syntax of the library functions (iconv_open, iconv, iconv_close) and the utility is described in the man pages.

Features of the library: - small size: the actual conversion methods are located in dynamically loaded shared modules, representing either a character encoding scheme (CES), or a coded character set (CCS); - open module API: adding new modules (both CESs and CCSs) is easy. Although the API has not been documented, it is rather simple to be figured out from the sources; - BSD-style copyright; - POSIX compliance of iconv_open, iconv and iconv_close functions; - support for aliases for charset names via UNIX symbolic links; - ISO/IEC 10646 conformance of the internal representation of characters; conversion is always done in two steps: (1) a sequence of zero or more bytes from input buffer coded in the source charset is converted to exactly one valid UCS-4 character and (2) the UCS-4 character is converted to a sequence of zero or more bytes in the target charset to the output buffer; - standard sources of CCS tables: all C source files of the tables have been generated by a Perl script from the Unicode and RFC1345 charset mapping tables before being included to the package.

            Konstantin Chuguev
            <Konstantin.Chuguev@dante.org.uk>
            September 2000.