manconv

manconv [-L locale] [-f from-encoding] [-t to-encoding] [--] [file...]

-L locale
    Specifies the locale to use for determining the default input and output encodings if they are not explicitly provided by -f or -t.

-f from-encoding
    Defines the original character encoding of the input file(s). If not specified, manconv attempts to determine it based on the locale or system defaults.

-t to-encoding
    Specifies the desired character encoding for the output. If omitted, the output encoding defaults to the system's current locale encoding.

--
    A standard convention indicating the end of command options. Any arguments following this will be treated as file names, even if they begin with a hyphen (-).

file...
    One or more manual page files whose encoding needs to be converted. If no file is specified, manconv reads content from standard input (stdin).

manconv is a utility from the man-db package designed to convert the character encoding of one or more manual pages. It reads the content of specified files (or standard input if no files are given), converts it from an initial encoding (the 'from-encoding') to a target encoding (the 'to-encoding'), and then prints the converted content to standard output.

This command is primarily used internally by other man-db components, such as man or mandb, when processing manual pages that are stored in an encoding different from the system's current locale or the desired display encoding. It leverages the underlying iconv library for robust and comprehensive character set conversions, supporting a wide range of encodings.

manconv relies on the system's iconv implementation for character set conversions. Therefore, the range of supported encodings depends on what iconv provides.
Conversion errors can occur if the input file's content is not valid for the specified 'from-encoding' or if a direct conversion path between the 'from-encoding' and 'to-encoding' does not exist without data loss.

manconv returns an exit status of 0 upon successful completion of the encoding conversion. A non-zero exit status indicates that an error occurred during the process, such as invalid parameters, unreadable files, or a conversion failure.

The behavior of manconv regarding default encodings can be influenced by standard locale environment variables, particularly LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG, when -f or -t options are not explicitly used.

manconv is an integral part of the man-db package, a widely used and modern implementation of the man system for Unix-like operating systems. Its development emerged to address the challenges of handling manual pages in various character encodings, allowing for greater internationalization and flexibility in manual page presentation and storage.

man(1), iconv(1), mandb(8)