Best way to convert string a to utf-*

[Erik Max Francis]

Oliver Kurz wrote:

> could someone tell me the best way to convert a string to utf, for
> example
> to utf-8?
> 
> The problem: I have no controll about the source where the string
> comes
> from. It could have any possible characterset. And I have to convert
> it for
> example to utf-8.

If the format is not already a Unicode string, you really can't know
what encoding it's in.  To convert it to UTF-8 (or UTF-16 or UTF-32),
you really must know what format it's in to begin with or otherwise
you're stuck.

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