PICONV(1perl)

💖 NAME 💖

okay so piconv is literally iconv(1), but reinvented in perl. This page is PICONV(1perl) from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, and bestie, we're about to make character encoding feel like main character energy. 💅✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

         piconv [-f from_encoding] [-t to_encoding]
                [-p|--perlqq|--htmlcref|--xmlcref] [-C N|-c] [-D] [-S scheme]
                [-s string|file...]
         piconv -l
         piconv -r encoding_alias
         piconv -h

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

piconv is the perl version of iconv, a character encoding converter that's widely available for various Unixen today. This script was primarily a technology demonstrator for Perl 5.8.0, but you can use piconv in the place of iconv for virtually any case. no cap.

piconv converts the character encoding of either STDIN or files specified in the argument and prints out to STDOUT. it's giving literal byte glow-up. 🌈

Here is the list of options. Some options can be in short format (-f) or long (--from) one. okay so let's go bestie.

• -f, --from from_encoding — specifies the encoding you are converting from. Unlike iconv, this option can be omitted. In such cases, the current locale is used.
• -t, --to to_encoding — specifies the encoding you are converting to. Unlike iconv, this option can be omitted. In such cases, the current locale is used.
  • Therefore, when both -f and -t are omitted, piconv just acts like cat.
• -s, --string string — uses string instead of file for the source of text.
• -l, --list — lists all available encodings, one per line, in case-insensitive order. Note that only the canonical names are listed; many aliases exist. For example, the names are case-insensitive, and many standard and common aliases work, such as "latin1" for "ISO-8859-1", or "ibm850" instead of "cp850", or "winlatin1" for "cp1252". See Encode::Supported for a full discussion. iykyk.
• -r, --resolve encoding_alias — resolve encoding_alias to Encode canonical encoding name.
• -C, --check N — check the validity of the stream if N = 1. When N = -1, something interesting happens when it encounters an invalid character.
• -c — same as -C 1.
• -p, --perlqq — transliterate characters missing in encoding to \x{HHHH} where HHHH is the hexadecimal Unicode code point.
• --htmlcref — transliterate characters missing in encoding to &#NNN; where NNN is the decimal Unicode code point.
• --xmlcref — transliterate characters missing in encoding to &#xHHHH; where HHHH is the hexadecimal Unicode code point.
• -h, --help — show usage.
• -D, --debug — invokes debugging mode. Primarily for Encode hackers.
• -S, --scheme scheme — selects which scheme is to be used for conversion. Available schemes are as follows:
  • from_to — uses Encode::from_to for conversion. This is the default.
  • decode_encode — input strings are decode()d then encode()d. A straight two-step implementation.
  • perlio — the new perlIO layer is used. NI-S' favorite.
    • You should use this option if you are using UTF-16 and others which linefeed is not $/.
  • Like the -D option, this is also for Encode hackers.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• iconv(1)
• locale(3)
• Encode
• Encode::Supported
• Encode::Alias
• PerlIO

made with 💖 from perl v5.44.0, 2026-10-17, PICONV(1perl) — periodt. 💅✨