iconv-lite

What is iconv-lite?

The iconv-lite npm package provides utilities for converting character encodings in pure JavaScript. It supports many different encodings and can convert to and from Buffer objects without the need for a native C++ binding. This makes it a lightweight and portable solution for encoding conversion.

What are iconv-lite's main functionalities?

Encoding Conversion

Converts text from one character encoding to another. The example shows how to decode a buffer to a string and encode a string to a buffer using Windows-1251 encoding.

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

// Convert from an encoded buffer to js string.
const str = iconv.decode(Buffer.from([0x63, 0x61, 0x66, 0xe9]), 'win1251');

// Convert from js string to an encoded buffer.
const buf = iconv.encode('Sample input text', 'win1251');

Streaming Conversion

Provides a streaming interface for encoding conversion. This example demonstrates how to create a read stream from a file and pipe it through iconv-lite's decode stream.

const iconv = require('iconv-lite');
const fs = require('fs');

// Decode stream (from a file, for example)
const readStream = fs.createReadStream('file.txt');
const decodeStream = iconv.decodeStream('win1251');

readStream.pipe(decodeStream);

decodeStream.on('data', function(str) {
  console.log(str); // converted text
});

Encoding Detection

Checks if a particular encoding is supported by iconv-lite. The example checks if UTF-8 encoding is supported.

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

// Check if encoding is supported
const encodingSupported = iconv.encodingExists('utf-8');

console.log(encodingSupported); // true or false

Other packages similar to iconv-lite

buffer

The 'buffer' package is a Node.js core module that provides a way to handle binary data. It does not offer direct encoding conversion like iconv-lite, but it can be used in conjunction with other modules to achieve similar results.

iconv

The 'iconv' package is similar to iconv-lite but relies on native C++ bindings. It provides more comprehensive encoding support but is not as lightweight or portable as iconv-lite due to its compiled components.

string_decoder

The 'string_decoder' module is a Node.js core module that provides an API for decoding Buffer objects into strings using a specified character encoding. It is less feature-rich compared to iconv-lite and does not support as many encodings.

README

iconv-lite - native javascript conversion between character encodings.

Usage

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

// Convert from an encoded buffer to string.
str = iconv.fromEncoding(buf, 'win-1251');
// Or
str = iconv.decode(buf, 'win-1251');

// Convert from string to an encoded buffer.
buf = iconv.toEncoding("Sample input string", 'win-1251');
// Or
buf = iconv.encode("Sample input string", 'win-1251');

Supported encodings

Currently the following encodings supported:

• All node.js native encodings: 'utf8', 'ucs2', 'ascii', 'binary', 'base64'
• Base encodings: 'latin1'
• Western encoding: 'windows-1252'
• Cyrillic encodings: 'windows-1251', 'koi8-r', 'iso-8859-5'
• Simplified chinese: 'gbk', 'gb2313'
• Greek encodings: 'windows-1253', 'iso-8859-7'/'greek', 'cp737', 'cp28597'

Other encodings are easy to add, see the source. Please, participate.

Encoding/decoding speed

Comparison with iconv module (1000 times 256kb, on Core i5/2.5 GHz).

Operation\module            iconv       iconv-lite (this)
toEncoding('win1251')       19.57 mb/s  49.04 mb/s
fromEncoding('win1251')     16.39 mb/s  24.11 mb/s

Notes

This module is JavaScript-only, thus can be used in a sandboxed environment like Cloud9.

Untranslatable characters are set to '?'. No transliteration is currently supported, pull requests are welcome.

Testing

npm install --dev iconv-lite
vows

TODO

• Support streaming character conversion, something like util.pipe(req, iconv.fromEncodingStream('latin1')).
• Add more encodings.
• Add transliteration (best fit char).
• Add tests and correct support of variable-byte encodings (currently work is delegated to node).