Technical data

environment variable is set to an installed locale and if reference page
translations are available for that locale, the man command automatically
displays reference pages in the appropriate language.
In addition, the man command automatically applies codeset conversion
(assuming the availability of appropriate converters) when reference page
translations for a particular language are encoded in a codeset that does not
match the codeset of the user’s locale. See man
(1)
for information about
redefining the man command search path and for more details about codeset
conversion.
1.10 Converting Data Files from One Codeset to Another
Each locale is based on a specific codeset. Therefore, when an application
uses a file whose data is coded in one codeset and runs in a locale based on
another codeset, character interpretation may be meaningless. You may
need to set the process environment to a particular locale and use a data file
created with a codeset different from the one on which the locale is based.
The data file in question might be appropriate for a given language and in a
codeset different from your locale for one of the following reasons:
• The data file might have been created on another vendor’s system by
using a locale based on a vendor-specific codeset. For example, the
integration of PCs into the enterprise computing environment increases
the likelihood that UNIX users need to process files for which the data
encoding is in MS-DOS code page format.
• The locale could be one of several UNIX locales that support the same
Asian language, such as Japanese. Asian languages are typically
supported by a variety of locales, each based on a different codeset.
• The data file could be in Unicode transformation format (UTF-8, UTF-16,
or UTF-32). If characters in this file are to be printed or displayed on
the screen, they might need to be converted to encodings for which
fonts are available.
You can convert a data file from one codeset to another by using the iconv
command. Consider the following example:
% iconv -f SJIS -t eucJP accounts_local \
>> accounts_central
This iconv command performs the following tasks:
• Reads data in the accounts_local file, which is encoded in the SJIS
codeset
• Converts the data to the eucJP codeset
• Appends the results to the accounts_central file
Working in a Multilanguage Environment 1–29