NAME¶

convmv - converts filenames from one encoding to another

SYNOPSIS¶

convmv [options] FILE(S) ... DIRECTORY(S)

OPTIONS¶

-f ENCODING

specify the current encoding of the filename(s) from which should be converted

-t ENCODING

specify the encoding to which the filename(s) should be converted

-i

interactive mode (ask y/n for each action)

-r

recursively go through directories

--nfc

target files will be normalization form C for UTF-8 (Linux etc.)

--nfd

target files will be normalization form D for UTF-8 (OS X etc.).

--qfrom , --qto

be more quiet about the "from" or "to" of a rename (if it screws up your terminal e.g.). This will in fact do nothing else than replace any non-ASCII character (bytewise) with ? and any control character with * on printout, this does not affect rename operation itself.

--exec command

execute the given command. You have to quote the command and #1 will be substituted by the old, #2 by the new filename. Using this option link targets will stay untouched.

Example:

convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 -r --exec "echo #1 should be renamed to #2" path/to/files

--list

list all available encodings. To get support for more Chinese or Japanese encodings install the Perl HanExtra or JIS2K Encode packages.

--lowmem

keep memory footprint low by not creating a hash of all files. This disables checking if symlink targets are in subtree. Symlink target pointers will be converted regardlessly. If you convert multiple hundredthousands or millions of files the memory usage of convmv might grow quite high. This option would help you out in that case.

--nosmart

by default convmv will detect if a filename is already UTF8 encoded and will skip this file if conversion from some charset to UTF8 should be performed. "--nosmart" will also force conversion to UTF-8 for such files, which might result in "double encoded UTF-8" (see section below).

--fixdouble

using the "--fixdouble" option convmv does only convert files which will still be UTF-8 encoded after conversion. That's useful for fixing double-encoded UTF-8 files. All files which are not UTF-8 or will not result in UTF-8 after conversion will not be touched. Also see chapter "How to undo double UTF-8 ..." below.

--notest

Needed to actually rename the files. By default convmv will just print what it wants to do.

--parsable

This is an advanced option that people who want to write a GUI front end will find useful (some others maybe, too). It will convmv make print out what it would do in an easy parsable way. The first column contains the action or some kind of information, the second column mostly contains the file that is to be modified and if appropriate the third column contains the modified value. Each column is separated by \0\n (nullbyte newline). Each row (one action) is separated by \0\0\n (nullbyte nullbyte newline).

--preserve-mtimes

modifying filenames usually causes the parent directory's mtime being updated. This option allows to reset the mtime to the old value. If your filesystem supports sub-second resolution the sub-second part of the atime and mtime will be lost as Perl does not yet support that.

--replace

if the file to which shall be renamed already exists, it will be overwritten if the other file content is equal.

--unescape

this option will remove this ugly % hex sequences from filenames and turn them into (hopefully) nicer 8-bit characters. After --unescape you might want to do a charset conversion. This sequences like %20 etc. are sometimes produced when downloading via http or ftp.

--upper , --lower

turn filenames into all upper or all lower case. When the file is not ASCII-encoded, convmv expects a charset to be entered via the -f switch.

--dotlessi

care about the dotless i/I issue. A lowercase version of "I" will also be dotless while an uppercase version of "i" will also be dotted. This is an issue for Turkish and Azeri.

By the way: The superscript dot of the letter i was added in the Middle Ages to distinguish the letter (in manuscripts) from adjacent vertical strokes in such letters as u, m, and n. J is a variant form of i which emerged at this time and subsequently became a separate letter.

--help

print a short summary of available options

--dump-options

print a list of all available options

DESCRIPTION¶

convmv is meant to help convert a single filename, a directory tree and the contained files or a whole filesystem into a different encoding. It just converts the filenames, not the content of the files. A special feature of convmv is that it also takes care of symlinks, also converts the symlink target pointer in case the symlink target is being converted, too.

All this comes in very handy when one wants to switch over from old 8-bit locales to UTF-8 locales. It is also possible to convert directories to UTF-8 which are already partly UTF-8 encoded. convmv is able to detect if certain files are UTF-8 encoded and will skip them by default. To turn this smartness off use the "--nosmart" switch.

SEE ALSO¶

locale(1) utf-8(7) charsets(7)

BUGS¶

no bugs or fleas known

AUTHOR¶

Bjoern JACKE

Send mail to bjoern [at] j3e.de for bug reports and suggestions.