Due to needs here, I have created an adapter module that includes Unicode::String, Unicode::Map, Unicode::Map8 and Jcode into a single simple API for general charset<->UTF8 tranformation. I wrote the authors of the above modules, but received no feedback from them about it. So I'm announcing it to the modules list. If I don't hear screams within a day or two, I'll upload it to CPAN under this name. Name DSLI Description Info ------------- ---- ----------------------------------------- -------- Unicode::MapUTF8 bdpf General UTF8 to other charset conversion SNOWHARE POD documentation NAME Unicode::MapUTF8 - Conversions to and from arbitrary character sets and UTF8 SYNOPSIS use Unicode::MapUTF8 qw(to_utf8 from_utf8 utf8_supported_charset); # Convert a string in 'ISO-8859-1' to 'UTF8' my $output = to_utf8({ -string => 'An example', -charset => 'ISO-8859-1' }); # Convert a string in 'UTF8' encoding to encoding 'ISO-8859-1' my $other = from_utf8({ -string => 'Other text', -charset => 'ISO-8859-1' }); # List available character set encodings my @character_sets = utf8_supported_charset; # Convert between two arbitrary (but largely compatible) charset encodings # (SJIS to EUC-JP) my $utf8_string = to_utf8({ -string =>$sjis_string, -charset => 'sjis'}); my $euc_jp_string = from_utf8({ -string => $utf8_string, -charset => 'euc-jp' }) # Verify that a specific character set is supported if (utf8_supported_charset('ISO-8859-1') { # Yes } DESCRIPTION Provides an adaptor layer between core routines for converting to and from UTF8 and other encodings. In essence, a way to give multiple existing Unicode modules a single common interface so you don't have to know the underlaying implementations to do simple UTF8 to-from other character set encoding conversions. As such, it wraps the Unicode::String, Unicode::Map8, Unicode::Map and Jcode modules in a standardized and simple API. This also provides general character set conversion operation based on UTF8 - it is possible to convert between any two compatible and supported character sets via a simple two step chaining of conversions. As with most things Perlish - if you give it a few big chunks of text to chew on instead of lots of small ones it will handle many more characters per second. By design, it can be easily extended to encompass any new charset encoding conversion modules that arrive on the scene. FUNCTIONS utf8_supported_charset($charset_name); Returns true if the named charset is supported. false if it is not. Example: if (! utf8_supported_charset('VISCII')) { # No support yet } If called in a list context with no parameters, it will return a list of all supported character set names. Example: my @charsets = utf8_supported_charset; to_utf8({ -string => $string, -charset => $source_charset }); Returns the string converted to UTF8 from the specified source charset. from_utf8({ -string => $string, -charset => $target_charset}); Returns the string converted from UTF8 to the specified target charset. VERSION 1.00 2000.09.29 - Initial Release. COPYRIGHT Copyright September, 2000 Benjamin Franz. All rights reserved. This software is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. AUTHOR Benjamin Franz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> TODO Debugging. SEE ALSO Unicode::String Unicode::Map8 Unicode::Map Jcode -- Benjamin Franz Perl - A post-modern programming language or a scripting tool gone horribly, horribly wrong? -- Rob Malda