(recode.info)Synopsis

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Synopsis of `recode' call
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   The general format of the program call is one of:

     recode [OPTION]... [CHARSET | REQUEST [FILE]... ]

   Some calls are used only to obtain lists produced by `recode' itself,
without actually recoding any file.  They are recognised through the
usage of listing options, and these options decide what meaning should
be given to an optional CHARSET parameter.  Note: Listings.

   In other calls, the first parameter (REQUEST) always explains which
transformations are expected on the files.  There are many variations to
the aspect of this parameter.  We will discuss more complex situations
later (Note: Requests), but for many simple cases, this parameter
merely looks like this(1):

     BEFORE..AFTER

where BEFORE and AFTER each gives the name of a charset.  Each FILE
will be read assuming it is coded with charset BEFORE, it will be
recoded over itself so to use the charset AFTER.  If there is no FILE
on the `recode' command, the program rather acts as a Unix filter and
transforms standard input onto standard output.

   The capability of recoding many files at once is very convenient.
For example, one could easily prepare a distribution from Latin-1 to
MSDOS, this way:

     mkdir package
     cp -p Makefile *.[ch] package
     recode Latin-1..MSDOS package/*
     zoo ah package.zoo package/*
     rm -rf package

(In this example, the non-mandatory `-p' option to `cp' is for
preserving timestamps, and the `zoo' program is an archiver from Rahul
Dhesi which once was quite popular.)

   The filter operation is especially useful when the input files should
not be altered.  Let us make an example to illustrate this point.
Suppose that someone has a file named `datum.txt', which is almost a
TeX file, except that diacriticised characters are written using
Latin-1.  To complete the recoding of the diacriticised characters
_only_ and produce a file `datum.tex', without destroying the original,
one could do:

     cp -p datum.txt datum.tex
     recode -d l1..tex datum.tex

   However, using `recode' as a filter will achieve the same goal more
neatly:

     recode -d l1..tex <datum.txt >datum.tex

   This example also shows that `l1' could be used instead of
`Latin-1'; charset names often have such aliases.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) In previous versions or `recode', a single colon `:' was used
instead of the two dots `..' for separating charsets, but this was
creating problems because colons are allowed in official charset names.
The old request syntax is still recognised for compatibility purposes,
but is deprecated.