Re: [PATCH] iconv.1: New page for iconv(1)

[Marko Myllynen <myllynen-H+wXaHxf7aLQT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org>]

Hi,

On 2014-06-11 13:07, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> On 06/11/2014 10:09 AM, Marko Myllynen wrote:
>> On 2014-06-10 22:28, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
>>> On 06/10/2014 10:38 AM, Marko Myllynen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> while updating the locale pages I noticed there was no iconv(1) page
>>>> in upstream so I wrote one, please see below.
>>>
>>> Thanks for doing this. Could I ask you to look at the comments below, and send
>>> a revised version, please.
>>
>> ok, please see below, hopefully the explanation are now clearer
>> without going into too low level details.
> 
> Yes, thanks, a lot better. I have applied this, but have a question, below.
> 
>> +.SH ENVIRONMENT
>> +Internally, the
>> +.B iconv
>> +program uses the
>> +.BR iconv (3)
>> +function which in turn uses
>> +.I gconv
>> +modules to convert to and from a character set.
>> +.B iconv
>> +supports any character set for which a
>> +corresponding gconv configuration and module are provided for.
>> +By default, the system provided gconv configuration and modules
>> +are used, but
>> +.B GCONV_PATH
>> +can be defined as a list of pathnames, separated by colons (\(aq:\(aq),
>> +for gconv configuration and module search path,
>> +to be searched prior to the system provided configuration and modules.
> 
> That last sentence is long and hard to parse. What exactly is GCONV_PATH?
> Is it a list of configuration paths? module search paths? I am
> left uncertain after reading that sentence.

yeah, I think I was trying to make a long story too short.

When a program, such as iconv(1), uses iconv(3) (the function), it first
needs to allocate a conversion descriptor with iconv_open(3) and during
the iconv_open() call glibc, if GCONV_PATH is not set, loads the system
gconv cache file created by iconvconfig(8) and based on the
configuration then loads the needed gconv modules for conversion (an
example of a gconv module is CP1252.so). If GCONV_PATH is set, glibc
first tries to load the configuration files from the paths in GCONV_PATH
followed by the system configuration file. If a directory does not
contain a gconv module configuration file, possible gconv modules in it
are ignored. If a directory contains a gconv module configuration file
and it is determined that a needed module for this conversion is
available in the directory, then the needed module is loaded from there,
the order being so that the first suitable module found in GCONV_PATH is
used. This allows users to use custom modules and even replace system
provided modules by providing such modules in GCONV_PATH directories.

Thanks,

-- 
Marko Myllynen
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