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

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

Hi,

On 2014-06-11 17:03, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Marko Myllynen <myllynen-H+wXaHxf7aLQT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> It sounds like you mean the above paragraph should be added to the
> page. Is that correct?

I was more like providing all the details and wasn't thinking to include
the paragraph at least as-is. But if you think it seems suitable to be
added, please go ahead. I'd personally prefer a more compact version but
compacting the message without losing precision in this case seems a bit
hard.

Thanks,

-- 
Marko Myllynen
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