yaz-iconv - Man Page

YAZ Character set conversion utility

Synopsis

yaz-iconv [-f from] [-t to] [-v] [file...]

Description

yaz-iconv converts data in the character set specified by from to output in the character set as specified by to​.

This yaz-iconv utility is similar to the iconv found on many POSIX systems (Glibc, Solaris, etc)​.

If no file is specified, yaz-iconv reads from standard input​.

Options

-ffrom]

Specify the character set from of the input file​. Should be used in conjunction with option -t​.

-tto]

Specify the character set of of the output​. Should be used in conjunction with option -f​.

-v

Print more information about the conversion process​.

Encodings

The yaz-iconv command and the API as defined in yaz/yaz-iconv​.h is a wrapper for the library system call iconv​. But YAZ' iconv utility also implements conversions on its own​. The table below lists characters sets (or encodings) that are supported by YAZ​. Each character set is marked with either encode or decode​. If an encoding is encode-enabled, YAZ may convert to the designated encoding​. If an encoding is decode-enabled, YAZ may convert from the designated encoding​.

marc8 (encode, decode)

The MARC8[1] encoding as defined by the Library of Congress​. Most MARC21/USMARC records use this encoding​.

marc8s (encode, decode)

Like MARC8 but conversion prefers non-combined characters in the Latin-1 plane over combined characters​.

marc8lossy (encode)

Lossy encoding of MARC-8​.

marc8lossless (encode)

Lossless encoding of MARC8​.

utf8 (encode, decode)

The most commonly used UNICODE encoding on the Internet​.

iso8859-1 (encode, decode)

ISO-8859-1, AKA Latin-1​.

iso5426 (decode)

ISO 5426​. Some MARC records (UNIMARC) use this encoding​.

iso5428:1984 (encode, decode)

ISO 5428:1984​.

advancegreek (encode, decode)

An encoding for Greek in use by some vendors (Advance)​.

danmarc (decode)

Danmarc (in danish)[2] is an encoding based on UNICODE which is used for DanMARC2 records​.

Examples

The following command converts from ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) to UTF-8​.

    yaz-iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 <input​.lst >output​.lst

Files

prefix/bin/yaz-iconv

prefix/include/yaz/yaz-iconv​.h

See Also

yaz(7) iconv(1)

Authors

Index Data

Notes

  1. MARC8
    https://loc.gov/marc/specifications/speccharmarc8.html
  2. Danmarc (in danish)
    https://www.kat-format.dk/danMARC2/Danmarc2.4.htm

Referenced By

yaz-marcdump(1).

09/10/2026 YAZ 5.38.0 Commands