NAME¶

convmv - converts filenames from one encoding to another

SYNOPSIS¶

convmv [options] FILE(S) ... DIRECTORY(S)

OPTIONS¶

-f ENCODING

specify the current encoding of the filename(s) from which should be converted

-t ENCODING

specify the encoding to which the filename(s) should be converted

-i

interactive mode (ask y/n for each action)

-r

recursively go through directories

--nfc

target files will be normalization form C for UTF-8 (Linux etc.)

--nfd

target files will be normalization form D for UTF-8 (OS X etc.).

--qfrom , --qto

be more quiet about the "from" or "to" of a rename (if it screws up yourterminal e.g.). This will in fact do nothing else than replace any non-ASCIIcharacter (bytewise) with ? and any control character with * on printout, thisdoes not affect rename operation itself.

--exec command

execute the given command. You have to quote the command and #1 will besubstituted by the old, #2 by the new filename. Using this option linktargets will stay untouched. Have in mind that #1 and #2 will be quotedby convmv already, you must not add extra quotation marks around them.

Example:

convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 -r --exec "echo #1 should be renamed to #2" path/to/files

--list

list all available encodings. To get support for more Chinese or Japaneseencodings install the Perl HanExtra or JIS2K Encode packages. Also installingthe Perl IMAPUTF7 package might be helpful if you need this encoding.

--lowmem

keep memory footprint low by not creating a hash of all files. This disableschecking if symlink targets are in subtree. Symlink target pointers will beconverted regardlessly. If you convert multiple hundredthousands or millions offiles the memory usage of convmv might grow quite high. This option would helpyou out in that case.

--nosmart

by default convmv will detect if a filename is already UTF8 encoded and willskip this file if conversion from some charset to UTF8 should be performed."--nosmart" will also force conversion to UTF-8 for such files, which might result in "double encoded UTF-8" (see section below).

--fixdouble

using the "--fixdouble" option convmv does only convert files which will still be UTF-8 encoded after conversion. That's useful for fixing double-encoded UTF-8 files. All files which are not UTF-8 or will not result in UTF-8 after conversion will not be touched. Also see chapter "How to undo double UTF-8 ..." below.

--notest

Needed to actually rename the files. By default convmv will just print what itwants to do.

--parsable

This is an advanced option that people who want to write a GUI front end willfind useful (some others maybe, too). It will convmv make print out what itwould do in an easy parsable way. The first column contains the action or somekind of information, the second column mostly contains the file that is to bemodified and if appropriate the third column contains the modified value. Eachcolumn is separated by \0\n (nullbyte newline). Each row (one action) isseparated by \0\0\n (nullbyte nullbyte newline).

--run-parsable

This option can be used to blindly execute the output of a previous--parsable run. This way it's possible to rename a huge amount of file in a minimum of time.

--no-preserve-mtimes

modifying filenames usually causes the parent directory's mtime being updated.Since version 2 convmv by default resets the mtime to the old value. If yourfilesystem supports sub-second resolution the sub-second part of the atime andmtime will be lost as Perl does not yet support that. With this option you candisable the preservation of the mtimes.

--replace

if the file to which shall be renamed already exists, it will be overwritten ifthe other file content is equal.

--unescape

this option will remove this ugly % hex sequences from filenames and turn theminto (hopefully) nicer 8-bit characters. After --unescape you might want to doa charset conversion. This sequences like %20 etc. are sometimes produced when downloading via http or ftp.

--upper , --lower

turn filenames into all upper or all lower case. When the file is notASCII-encoded, convmv expects a charset to be entered via the -f switch.

--map=some-extra-mapping

apply some custom character mappings, currently supported are:

ntfs-sfm(-undo), ntfs-sfu(-undo) for the mapping of illegal ntfs characters forLinux or Macintosh cifs clients (see MS KB 117258 also mapchars mount option ofmount.cifs on Linux).

ntfs-pretty(-undo) for for the mapping of illegal ntfs characters to prettylegal Japanese versions of them.

See the map_get_newname() function how to easily add own mappings if needed. Let me know if you think convmv is missing some useful mapping here.

--dotlessi

care about the dotless i/I issue. A lowercase version of "I" will also bedotless while an uppercase version of "i" will also be dotted. This is anissue for Turkish and Azeri.

By the way: The superscript dot of the letter i was added in the Middle Ages todistinguish the letter (in manuscripts) from adjacent vertical strokes in suchletters as u, m, and n. J is a variant form of i which emerged at this time andsubsequently became a separate letter.

--caseful-sz

let convmv convert the sz ligature (U+00DF) to the uppercase version(U+1E9E) and vice versa. As of 2017 most fs case mapping tables don't treatthose two code points as case equivalents. Thus the default of convmv is totreat it caseless for now also (unless this option is used).

--help

print a short summary of available options

--dump-options

print a list of all available options

DESCRIPTION¶

convmv is meant to help convert a single filename, a directory tree and the contained files or a whole filesystem into a different encoding. It just converts the filenames, not the content of the files. A special feature of convmv is that it also takes care of symlinks, also converts the symlink target pointer in case the symlink target is being converted, too.

All this comes in very handy when one wants to switch over from old 8-bitlocales to UTF-8 locales. It is also possible to convert directories to UTF-8which are already partly UTF-8 encoded. convmv is able to detect if certainfiles are UTF-8 encoded and will skip them by default. To turn this smartnessoff use the "--nosmart" switch.

SEE ALSO¶

locale(1) utf-8(7) charsets(7)

BUGS¶

no bugs or fleas known

DONATE¶

You can support convmv by doing a donation, see <https://www.j3e.de/donate.html>

AUTHOR¶

Bjoern JACKE

Send mail to bjoern [at] j3e.de for bug reports and suggestions.