conv

iconv [OPTIONS] -f FROM_ENCODING -t TO_ENCODING [INPUT_FILE...]

-f FROM_ENCODING
    Specifies the original character encoding of the input text. This must be an encoding recognized by iconv.

-t TO_ENCODING
    Specifies the target character encoding for the output text. This must also be an encoding recognized by iconv.

-c
    Discards characters that cannot be converted from the source encoding to the target encoding without causing an error. Without this option, conversion failure for a character might result in an error and termination.

-s
    Suppresses warnings about illegal or unconvertible characters encountered during the conversion process.

-o OUTPUT_FILE
    Redirects the converted output to the specified OUTPUT_FILE instead of standard output.

-l, --list
    Lists all character encodings supported by the current iconv implementation.

-V, --version
    Displays version information for the iconv utility.

-?, --help
    Displays a help message with usage information and options.

While "conv" is not a standard Linux command, it is highly probable that the intended command was iconv. This utility is fundamental for converting text from one character encoding to another.
It is essential in environments where files originate from different systems or use diverse language settings, for instance, converting between UTF-8, Latin-1, UTF-16, or various ISO encodings.
iconv reads input from standard input or specified files and writes the converted output to standard output or a designated output file. It plays a crucial role in internationalization (I18N) and ensuring data integrity across different character sets.

Not all characters from the FROM_ENCODING might have an equivalent representation in the TO_ENCODING. Without the -c option, encountering such characters can lead to conversion errors and command termination. The set of supported encodings can vary slightly depending on the specific iconv implementation and the underlying C library (e.g., glibc) on a given system.

The command 'conv' is not a standard, widely recognized Linux utility. This analysis is provided for iconv, which is the most common and core utility related to character set conversion and is often what users might implicitly refer to when thinking of 'conversion' commands. Another possible command the user might have intended, especially for image format conversions, is convert from the ImageMagick suite. This document specifically focuses on iconv due to its nature as a fundamental text processing utility.

iconv is an integral part of the GNU C Library (glibc) and has been a standard utility on Unix-like operating systems for decades. Its importance grew significantly with the advent of Unicode and the increasing need for robust internationalization support in software and data handling, enabling seamless text exchange across diverse language and platform environments.

locale(1), recode(1), file(1)