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Linux.com: CLI Magic: Convert File Names to a Different Encoding with convmv

Written By
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Web Webster
Web Webster
Dec 12, 2006

“Recent versions of most Linux distributions support non-English
languages out of the box by using the Unicode standard. I was
pleasantly surprised when I found out that I was able to read and
write in Greek–my native language–on a fresh Ubuntu Edgy Eft
installation without any manual intervention. Unfortunately, my
happiness lasted only until I tried to open files with Greek file
names. Instead of Greek characters I saw garbage. I’ve been using
the 8-bit ISO 8859-7 encoding for Greek file names, and since it
worked well I was too lazy to convert my systems to Unicode.
Manually renaming hundreds of files in order to convert them to
Unicode was not an option; I needed some kind of automation. Convmv
is the right tool for that job.

“Convmv is a Perl program that converts file names and
directories between different character encodings. It converts only
the file names, not the content of the files, and can also convert
a whole filesystem, including symlinks…”

Complete
Story

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Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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