Text::Iconv Version 1.6 Copyright © 2007 Michael Piotrowski. All Rights Reserved. This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Description ----------- This module provides a Perl interface to the iconv() codeset conversion function, as defined by the Single UNIX Specification. For more details see the POD documentation embedded in the file Iconv.pm, which will also be installed as Text::Iconv(3) man page. Prerequisites ------------- Your system should be compliant with the Single UNIX Specification or at least provide iconv_open(), iconv() and iconv_close() functions compliant with it. Note that the possible conversions and the quality of the conversions depend on the available iconv conversion tables and algorithms, which are in most cases supplied by the operating system vendor. Some systems also allow you to build your own tables (e.g., HP-UX, Tru64 UNIX, and AIX provide the genxlt(1) command). It is also possible to use a separate iconv library such as GNU libiconv package, just make sure that the desired library is found (see ). Building the module ------------------- Since the Single UNIX Specification only specifies an interface, several issues are left to the implementation to define, namely: 1. The supported codesets 2. The supported conversions 3. The names for the supported codesets Please check your system documentation for the above points. The module can be built using this sequence of commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test On some systems, the iconv functions are in libc; on others (and when you want to use a separate iconv library, such as GNU libiconv), you have to link with -liconv. Makefile.PL tries to automatically detect this. However, if your iconv library is in a non-standard path, you might have to help it. You can specify library and include paths like this: perl Makefile.PL LIBS='-L/path/to/lib' INC='-I/path/to/include You might also have to do this if you have multiple iconv implementations installed and want to use a specific one. The purpose of the test scripts (run by "make test") is to check if an iconv library can be found, and if the iconv functions can be called. It is neither intended to find out which conversions are supported, nor to test the quality of the conversions provided by your iconv library. However, since the iconv functions can only be tested by calling them, which in turn requires the specification of codesets to be converted. The test scripts try some conversions which seem to be widely supported. Conversions not supported by your iconv implementation are skipped, but for the purpose outlined above this is no problem, as it shows that the iconv functions are working. There is no standard way to find out which conversions are supported by an implementation. This is also the reason why Text::Iconv can't provide platform-independent support for codeset identifiers (even if it it would be nice to have). Installation ------------ make install Feedback -------- Text::Iconv was tested on various platforms and with different iconv implementations. If you built Text::Iconv on a platform where you needed to specify additional libraries, or where none of the codeset identifiers in the test scripts are supported, please drop me a note. Thanks ------ Thanks go to all those who reported bugs and suggested features. Michael Piotrowski