= Useful Utilities =

<<TableOfContents>>

== convmv - converts filenames from one encoding to another ==

 It is a typical situation, that encoding of filenames are not correct after copying them between
 different platforms. Use '''convmv''' to convert filenames.

 See some examples using '''convmv''' below. See '''man convmv''' for all options. 

 Convert the name of a single file from ISO-8859-2 to UTF-8:
 {{{
convmv -f latin2 -t utf8 filename_in_ISO-8859-2 # --notest
}}}

 Convert filename in a directory structure recursively from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8:
 {{{
convmv -r -f latin1 -t utf8 directory_name # --notest
}}}

 Convert filenames downloaded through html (characters escaped by '%'):
 {{{
convmv --unescape aple%20and%20pie.txt # --notest
}}}

 '''IMPORTANT Notes''':

  * Without the option '''--notest''' '''convmv''' will just print what it wants to do. The option
  '''--notest''' is commented out in the examples above, use it if convmv reports
  the intended operations.
 
  * See '''iconv -l''' for charset names. A character set has a lot of names. E.g. latin1, ISO88591, 
  ISO8859-1, ISO_8859-1, ISO-8859-1 are the same.

  * In many cases it is impossibly to enter the filename to be converted, use wildcards in filename
  parameters if necessary