ISOQUERY(1)

📦
version 3.4.0 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

ISOQUERY(1) 💖 the manual, but make it ✨slay✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about isoquery from the <pink>iso-codes</pink> corner of the world. it's a lil command-line icon and i'm obsessed. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

isoquery — search and display various ISO codes (country, language, …) 👑

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

isoquery [OPTION …] [ISO codes]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so this manual page is the whole rundown on the isoquery command, no gatekeeping. basically it generates a tabular output of the ISO standard codes that the iso-codes package hands you, which is giving very organized-bestie energy. it parses the JSON files and shows you all the included ISO codes, or just the ones that match if you specified some on the command line. and wait — there's more — you can also pull up all the available translations for the ISO standard. the way that just works?? 😭💜

💅 OPTIONS 💅

this program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, bestie, with long options starting with two dashes (-). isoquery supports the following options:

  • -i, --iso=STANDARD — the ISO standard you want to use. possible values: 639-2, 639-3, 639-5, 3166-1, 3166-2, 3166-3, 4217, 15924 (default: 3166-1) 🌈
  • -p, --pathname=PATHNAME — use PATHNAME as the prefix for the data files (default: /usr/share/iso-codes/json) 📂
  • -l, --locale=LOCALE — use this LOCALE for the output 🌍
  • -n, --name — name for the supplied codes (this is the default) 🏷️
  • -o, --official_name — official name for the supplied codes. this may be the same as --name (only applies to ISO 3166-1) 📜
  • -c, --common_name — common name for the supplied codes. this may be the same as --name (only applies to ISO 639-2, 639-3, and 3166-1) 💬
  • -0, --null — separate entries with a NULL character instead of a newline 🫧
  • -f, --flag — show country flags with regional indicator symbol letters (only applies to ISO 3166-1) 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇪🇸
  • -h, --help — show a summary of options 🙋‍♀️
  • -v, --version — show program version and copyright 📌

🌸 EXAMPLES 🌸

no cap, this is the fun part. every example below is exact, so copy away, bestie. 💖

if you call it with no command line options at all, isoquery prints a table of all the ISO 3166-1 codes. the first three columns hold the alpha-2 code, the alpha-3 code, and the numerical code assigned to the country, and that country's name is chilling in the fourth column. ✨

$ isoquery
AW      ABW     533     Aruba
[…]
ZW      ZWE     716     Zimbabwe

only need some countries? you can throw in any of the codes from those first three columns and it'll cut the output way down. 🎯

$ isoquery so nor 484
SO      SOM     706     Somalia
NO      NOR     578     Norway
MX      MEX     484     Mexico

need the translations of the countries' names? just say which LOCALE you want the output in. 💜 heads up though: the original English name gets shown if there's no translation available for the LOCALE you asked for. not a bug, just how it is, bestie.

$ isoquery --locale=nl fr de es
FR      FRA     250     Frankrijk
DE      DEU     276     Duitsland
ES      ESP     724     Spanje

if your terminal supports the unicode regional indicator symbol letters, you can use the --flag command line option. those letters can be displayed as a country flag. 🏳️👑

$ isoquery --flag --locale=nl fr de es
FR      FRA     250     🇫🇷      Frankrijk
DE      DEU     276     🇩🇪      Duitsland
ES      ESP     724     🇪🇸      Spanje

all of the above works for different ISO standards too, so you can switch to the more extensive standard ISO 3166-2 with the --iso command line option. the columns are ISO 3166-2 code, subset type (e.g. State, Province, etc.), parent, and name. and psst — that third column (parent) may be empty. 🙈

$ isoquery --iso=3166-2
AD-02   Parish          Canillo
[…]
ZW-MW   Province        Mashonaland West

codes that have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 are available in ISO 3166-3. the columns are alpha-3 code, alpha-4 code, numeric code, comment, withdrawal date, and name. the columns for numeric code, comment, and withdrawal date may be empty. 💀 (rip to those codes fr)

$ isoquery --iso=3166-3
AFI     AIDJ    262             1977    French Afars and Issas
ANT     ANHH    532             1993-07-12      Netherlands Antilles
[…]
YUG     YUCS    891             1993-07-28      Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of
ZAR     ZRCD    180             1997-07-14      Zaire, Republic of

for ISO 639-2, the first three columns are the alpha-3 code, the bibliographic code, and the alpha-2 code. the second and third columns may be empty. 🫶

$ isoquery --iso=639-2
aar             aa      Afar
abk             ab      Abkhazian
ace                     Achinese
[…]
zun                     Zuni
zxx                     No linguistic content; Not applicable
zza                     Zaza; Dimili; Dimli; Kirdki; Kirmanjki; Zazaki

you can trim down the results by specifying only some codes. and the option to get translated names is available here too, obviously. 💅

$ isoquery --iso=639-2 --locale=pt vi bo kl
vie             vi      Vietnamita
bod     tib     bo      tibetano
kal             kl      Kalaallisut; Greenlandic

if you want ISO 639-3, the displayed columns are alpha-3, scope, type, alpha-2, bibliographic, and the language name. both alpha-2 and bibliographic may be empty. ✨

$ isoquery -i 639-3 aal new spa guc
aal     I       L                       Afade
new     I       L                       Newari
spa     I       L       es              Spanish
guc     I       L                       Wayuu

ISO 639-5 is also available, bestie. the displayed columns are alpha-3 and name. 🌈

$ isoquery -i 639-5 aus tut
aus     Australian languages
tut     Altaic languages

you can get selected translations of currency names from the ISO 4217 standard with the command below. the first column is the alpha-3 code, the second one is the numerical code assigned to the currency, and the currency's name shows up in the third column. 💰

$ isoquery --iso=4217 --locale=da cad 392
CAD     124     Canadisk dollar
JPY     392     Yen

need script names? use the ISO 15924 table. the first column is the alpha-4 code, the second one is the numerical code assigned to the script, and the script's name is in the third column. ✍️

$ isoquery --iso=15924 jpan latn 280
Jpan    413     Japanese (alias for Han + Hiragana + Katakana)
Latn    215     Latin
Visp    280     Visible Speech

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

by default, the JSON files provided by the iso-codes package are the ones used. here's the whole lineup, in order, no skips: 🧚

  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_639-2.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_639-3.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_639-5.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_3166-1.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_3166-2.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_3166-3.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_4217.json
  • /usr/share/iso-codes/json/iso_15924.json

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Dr. Tobias Quathamer toddy@debian.org — legendary behavior, honestly. 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this was manual version 3.4.0, dated 2026-07-19, and it's giving ISOQUERY(1) main character energy. go read some codes. slay. ✨💅🦋

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