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https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite

Convert character encodings in pure javascript.
https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite

encoding encoding-convertors iconv javascript

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Convert character encodings in pure javascript.

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## iconv-lite: Pure JS character encoding conversion



 * No need for native code compilation. Quick to install, works on Windows, Web, and in sandboxed environments.

 * Used in popular projects like [Express.js (body_parser)](https://github.com/expressjs/body-parser), 

   [Grunt](http://gruntjs.com/), [Nodemailer](http://www.nodemailer.com/), [Yeoman](http://yeoman.io/) and others.

 * Faster than [node-iconv](https://github.com/bnoordhuis/node-iconv) (see below for performance comparison).

 * Intuitive encode/decode API, including Streaming support.

 * In-browser usage via [browserify](https://github.com/substack/node-browserify) or [webpack](https://webpack.js.org/) (~180kb gzip compressed with Buffer shim included).

 * Typescript [type definition file](https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite/blob/master/lib/index.d.ts) included.

 * React Native is supported (need to install `stream` module to enable Streaming API).

 * License: MIT.



[![NPM Stats](https://nodei.co/npm/iconv-lite.png)](https://npmjs.org/package/iconv-lite/)  

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite)

[![npm](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/iconv-lite.svg)](https://npmjs.org/package/iconv-lite/)

[![npm downloads](https://img.shields.io/npm/dm/iconv-lite.svg)](https://npmjs.org/package/iconv-lite/)

[![npm bundle size](https://img.shields.io/bundlephobia/min/iconv-lite.svg)](https://npmjs.org/package/iconv-lite/)



## Usage

### Basic API

```javascript

var iconv = require('iconv-lite');



// Convert from an encoded buffer to a js string.

str = iconv.decode(Buffer.from([0x68, 0x65, 0x6c, 0x6c, 0x6f]), 'win1251');



// Convert from a js string to an encoded buffer.

buf = iconv.encode("Sample input string", 'win1251');



// Check if encoding is supported

iconv.encodingExists("us-ascii")

```



### Streaming API

```javascript



// Decode stream (from binary data stream to js strings)

http.createServer(function(req, res) {

    var converterStream = iconv.decodeStream('win1251');

    req.pipe(converterStream);



    converterStream.on('data', function(str) {

        console.log(str); // Do something with decoded strings, chunk-by-chunk.

    });

});



// Convert encoding streaming example

fs.createReadStream('file-in-win1251.txt')

    .pipe(iconv.decodeStream('win1251'))

    .pipe(iconv.encodeStream('ucs2'))

    .pipe(fs.createWriteStream('file-in-ucs2.txt'));



// Sugar: all encode/decode streams have .collect(cb) method to accumulate data.

http.createServer(function(req, res) {

    req.pipe(iconv.decodeStream('win1251')).collect(function(err, body) {

        assert(typeof body == 'string');

        console.log(body); // full request body string

    });

});

```



## Supported encodings



 *  All node.js native encodings: utf8, ucs2 / utf16-le, ascii, binary, base64, hex.

 *  Additional unicode encodings: utf16, utf16-be, utf-7, utf-7-imap, utf32, utf32-le, and utf32-be.

 *  All widespread singlebyte encodings: Windows 125x family, ISO-8859 family, 

    IBM/DOS codepages, Macintosh family, KOI8 family, all others supported by iconv library. 

    Aliases like 'latin1', 'us-ascii' also supported.

 *  All widespread multibyte encodings: CP932, CP936, CP949, CP950, GB2312, GBK, GB18030, Big5, Shift_JIS, EUC-JP.



See [all supported encodings on wiki](https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite/wiki/Supported-Encodings).



Most singlebyte encodings are generated automatically from [node-iconv](https://github.com/bnoordhuis/node-iconv). Thank you Ben Noordhuis and libiconv authors!



Multibyte encodings are generated from [Unicode.org mappings](http://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/) and [WHATWG Encoding Standard mappings](http://encoding.spec.whatwg.org/). Thank you, respective authors!



## Encoding/decoding speed



Comparison with node-iconv module (1000x256kb, on MacBook Pro, Core i5/2.6 GHz, Node v0.12.0). 

Note: your results may vary, so please always check on your hardware.



    operation             [email protected]   [email protected]

    ----------------------------------------------------------

    encode('win1251')     ~96 Mb/s      ~320 Mb/s

    decode('win1251')     ~95 Mb/s      ~246 Mb/s



## BOM handling



 * Decoding: BOM is stripped by default, unless overridden by passing `stripBOM: false` in options

   (f.ex. `iconv.decode(buf, enc, {stripBOM: false})`).

   A callback might also be given as a `stripBOM` parameter - it'll be called if BOM character was actually found.

 * If you want to detect UTF-8 BOM when decoding other encodings, use [node-autodetect-decoder-stream](https://github.com/danielgindi/node-autodetect-decoder-stream) module.

 * Encoding: No BOM added, unless overridden by `addBOM: true` option.



## UTF-16 Encodings



This library supports UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE and UTF-16 encodings. First two are straightforward, but UTF-16 is trying to be

smart about endianness in the following ways:

 * Decoding: uses BOM and 'spaces heuristic' to determine input endianness. Default is UTF-16LE, but can be 

   overridden with `defaultEncoding: 'utf-16be'` option. Strips BOM unless `stripBOM: false`.

 * Encoding: uses UTF-16LE and writes BOM by default. Use `addBOM: false` to override.



## UTF-32 Encodings



This library supports UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE and UTF-32 encodings. Like the UTF-16 encoding above, UTF-32 defaults to UTF-32LE, but uses BOM and 'spaces heuristics' to determine input endianness. 

 * The default of UTF-32LE can be overridden with the `defaultEncoding: 'utf-32be'` option. Strips BOM unless `stripBOM: false`.

 * Encoding: uses UTF-32LE and writes BOM by default. Use `addBOM: false` to override. (`defaultEncoding: 'utf-32be'` can also be used here to change encoding.)



## Other notes



When decoding, be sure to supply a Buffer to decode() method, otherwise [bad things usually happen](https://github.com/ashtuchkin/iconv-lite/wiki/Use-Buffers-when-decoding).  

Untranslatable characters are set to � or ?. No transliteration is currently supported.  

Node versions 0.10.31 and 0.11.13 are buggy, don't use them (see #65, #77).  



## Testing



```bash

$ git clone [email protected]:ashtuchkin/iconv-lite.git

$ cd iconv-lite

$ npm install

$ npm test

    

$ # To view performance:

$ node test/performance.js



$ # To view test coverage:

$ npm run coverage

$ open coverage/lcov-report/index.html

```