ENCGUESS(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide ENCGUESS(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

encguess - guess character encodings of files

# [VERSION](#VERSION)

$Id: encguess,v 0.4 2023/11/10 01:10:50 dankogai Exp $

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

```
  encguess [switches] filename...
```

## [SWITCHES](#SWITCHES)

[-h](#h)

show this message and exit.

[-s](#s)

specify a list of "suspect encoding types" to test, separated by either ":" or ","

[-S](#S)

output a list of all acceptable encoding types that can be used with the -s param

[-u](#u)

suppress display of unidentified types

## [EXAMPLES:](#EXAMPLES:)

- Guess encoding of a file named "test.txt", using only the default suspect types.
  
  ```
     encguess test.txt
      
  ```
- Guess the encoding type of a file named "test.txt", using the suspect types "euc-jp,shiftjis,7bit-jis".
  
  ```
     encguess -s euc-jp,shiftjis,7bit-jis test.txt
     encguess -s euc-jp:shiftjis:7bit-jis test.txt
      
  ```
- Guess the encoding type of several files, do not display results for unidentified files.
  
  ```
     encguess -us euc-jp,shiftjis,7bit-jis test*.txt
      
  ```

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

The encoding identification is done by checking one encoding type at a time until all but the right type are eliminated. The set of encoding types to try is defined by the -s parameter and defaults to ascii, utf8 and UTF-16/32 with BOM. This can be overridden by passing one or more encoding types via the -s parameter. If you need to pass in multiple suspect encoding types, use a quoted string with the a space separating each value.

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

Encode::Guess, Encode::Detect

# [LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT](#LICENSE_AND_COPYRIGHT)

Copyright 2015 Michael LaGrasta and Dan Kogai.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License (2.0). You may obtain a copy of the full license at:

<http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic\_license\_2\_0>

2026-10-27 perl v5.44.0

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Document: encguess(1) from perl 5.44.0-r4 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/Perl/perl5.git