---
name: "cstocs"
section: "1p"
platform: "linux"
package: "cstocs"
version: "1:3.44-1.1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/cstocs/1p"
---

# cstocs(1p)

## NAME

cstocs -- charset encoding convertor for the Czech and Slovak languages.

## FORMAT

```
        cstocs [options] src_encoding dst_encoding [files ...]
```

## SYNOPSIS

```
        cstocs il2 ascii < file | less
        cstocs -i utf8 il2 file1 file2 file3
        cstocs --help
```

## DESCRIPTION

Cstocs is a simple conversion utility to change charset encoding of a text. It reads either specified files or (if none specified) the standard input, assumes that the input is encoded in `"src_encoding"` and ties to reencode it into `"dst_encoding"`. The result is written to the standard output.

Run `"cstocs"` without parameters to get short help and list of available encodings.

Characters that are not defined in `"src_encoding"` are passed to the output unchanged.

If source text contains character, that is defined in `"src_encoding"` but not in `"dst_encoding"`, it can be handled several ways. For example, character "e with caron" (symbol ecaron), and "d with caron" (symbol dcaron)  are included in the iso-8859-2 encoding, but not in the iso-8859-1. If you will do reencoding of 8859-2 text to 8859-1, you may want to do one of the following actions:

- 1\.

  Keep it the same, option `"--nofillstring"`.

- 2\.

  Do not produce any output instead of "ecaron" symbol, option `"--null"`.

- 3\.

  Substitute some string (possibly a space) instead of both ecaron and dcaron, options `"--fillstring"`.

- 4\.

  Substitute a letter "d" instead of dcaron, and "e" instead of ecaron. It is even possible to substitute string instead of symbol, so you can replace the "AE" Latin character with string "AE" (letter "A", and letter "E").  Or you can replace a "plusminus sign" with a string "+/-".  These substitutions are described in the *accent* file.

## OPTIONS

- \-i, -i.ext, --inplace.ext

  Files specified will be converted in-place, using Perl `"-i"` facility. Optionaly, an extension for backup copies may be specified after dot. This parameter **has** to be the first one, if specified.

- \--dir directory

  Encoding files are taken from *directory* instead of the default, which is *Cz/Cstocs/enc* in the Perl lib tree. The location of encoding files can also be changed using the *CSTOCSDIR* environment variable, but the --dir option has the highest priority.

- \--fillstring string

  If source text contains character, that is defined in the `"src_encoding"` but not in the `"dst_encoding"` nor in the *accent* file (or *accent* file is not used), it is replaced by `"string"`. The default is single space.

- \--nofillstring

  Disable changes of characters that would otherwise have fillstring applied. This is different from `"--null"` because that cancels that character out.

- \--null

  Completely equivalent to --fillstring "".

- \--nochange or --noaccent

  Do not use the *accent* file at all.

- \--onebyone

  Use only those rules from the *accent* file, which rewrite one character to one character. If this option is specified, character "ecaron" will be rewritten to "e", but "AE" character will not be rewritten to "AE" string.

- \--onebymore

  Use all rules from accent file. This is the default option.

## SEE ALSO

**Cz::Cstocs**(3).

## AUTHOR

Jan "Yenya" Kasprzak has done the original Un\*x implementation.

Jan Pazdziora created the Perl module version.