This is not the libiconv you are looking for. GNU libiconv provides an implementation of the iconv() function which is used to convert between various character representations for different locales. This function is provided for use on systems which don't already have iconv(), or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode. This package also provides a tool, iconv(1), which can be used to convert character sets from the command line. The associated libcharset provides a mechanism to determine the canonical character set name of the current locale. This msys port of libiconv has been modified specifically for the MSYS System Builder environment; that is, it is intended to be used only when producing binary packages for the MSYS subsystem. If you intend to produce executables for the native "mingw32" subsystem which require character set conversion (that is, applications that should work on Microsoft Windows installations without the MSYS dll), then you should install the mingw32-libiconv-* package(s) instead. This is not the libcharset you are looking for. GNU libiconv provides an implementation of the iconv() function which is used to convert between various character representations for different locales. This function is provided for use on systems which don't already have iconv(), or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode. This package also provides a tool, iconv(1), which can be used to convert character sets from the command line. The associated libcharset provides a mechanism to determine the canonical character set name of the current locale. This msys port of libiconv has been modified specifically for the MSYS System Builder environment; that is, it is intended to be used only when producing binary packages for the MSYS subsystem. If you intend to produce executables for the native "mingw32" subsystem which require character set conversion (that is, applications that should work on Microsoft Windows installations without the MSYS dll), then you should install the mingw32-libiconv-* package(s) instead.