---
name: "native2ascii-openjdk8"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "jdk8-openjdk"
version: "8.504.u01-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/native2ascii-openjdk8"
---

# native2ascii-openjdk8(1)

Creates localizable applications by converting a file with characters in any supported character encoding to one with ASCII and/or Unicode escapes or vice versa.

## NAME

native2ascii - Creates localizable applications by converting a file with characters in any supported character encoding to one with ASCII and/or Unicode escapes or vice versa.

## SYNOPSIS

```
native2ascii [ inputfile ] [ outputfile ]
```

- *inputfile*

  The encoded file to be converted to ASCII.

- *outputfile*

  The converted ASCII file.

## DESCRIPTION

The **native2ascii** command converts encoded files supported by the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to files encoded in ASCII, using Unicode escapes (**\\u***xxxx*) notation for all characters that are not part of the ASCII character set. This process is required for properties files that contain characters not in ISO-8859-1 character sets. The tool can also perform the reverse conversion.

If the **outputfile** value is omitted, then standard output is used for output. If, in addition, the **inputfile** value is omitted, then standard input is used for input.

## OPTIONS

- \-reverse

  Perform the reverse operation: Converts a file encoded in ISO-8859-1 with Unicode escapes to a file in any character encoding supported by the JRE.

- \-encoding *encoding\_name*

  Specifies the name of the character encoding to be used by the conversion procedure. If this option is not present, then the default character encoding (as determined by the **java.nio.charset.Charset.defaultCharset** method) is used. The **encoding\_name** string must be the name of a character encoding that is supported by the JRE. See Supported Encodings at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/intl/encoding.doc.html

- \-J*option*

  Passes **option** to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), where option is one of the options described on the reference page for the Java application launcher. For example, **-J-Xms48m** sets the startup memory to 48 MB. See java(1).