isoquery (1)

isoquery [options] [file] [ISO codes]

This manual page documents briefly the isoquery command. It can be used to generate a tabular output of the ISO standard codes provided by the package iso-codes. It parses the XML files and shows all included ISO codes or just matching entries, if specified on the command line. Moreover, it's possible to get all available translations for the ISO standard.

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes ('-'). isoquery supports the following options:

-istandard,--iso=standard

The ISO standard to use. Possible values: 639, 639-3, 639-5, 3166, 3166-2, 4217, 15924 (default: 3166).

-xfile,--xmlfile=file

Use another XML file with ISO data (default: /usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_3166.xml).

-llocale,--locale=locale

Use this locale for output.

-n, --name

Name for the supplied codes (default).

-o, --official_name

Official name for the supplied codes. This may be the same as --name (only applies to ISO 3166).

-c, --common_name

Common name for the supplied codes. This may be the same as --name (only applies to ISO 3166).

-0, --null

Separate entries with a NULL character instead of newline.

-h, --help

Show summary of options.

-v, --version

Show program version and copyright.

If called without any command line options, isoquery will put out a table of all ISO 3166 codes. The first three columns contain the alpha-2 code, the alpha-3 code, and the numerical code assigned to the country listed in the fourth column.

$ isoquery
AF      AFG     004     Afghanistan
[...]
ZW      ZWE     716     Zimbabwe

If you need only some countries, you can specify any of the codes in the first three columns to cut down the output.

$ isoquery so nor 484
SO      SOM     706     Somalia
NO      NOR     578     Norway
MX      MEX     484     Mexico

Should you need the translations of the countries' names, just specify in which locale you'd like to see the output. Please note that the original English name will be shown if there is no translation available for the specified locale.

$ isoquery --locale=nl fr de es
FR      FRA     250     Frankrijk
DE      DEU     276     Duitsland
ES      ESP     724     Spanje

All of the above works for different ISO standards as well, so you can switch to the more extensive standard ISO 3166-2 by using the --iso command line option. The columns are country code, subset type (e.g. State, Province, etc.), ISO 3166-2 code, parent, and name. The fourth column (parent) may be empty.

$ isoquery --iso=3166-2
AD      Parish          AD-07           Andorra la Vella
[...]
ZW      Province        ZW-MI           Midlands

For ISO 639, the first three columns are the ISO 639 2B code, the ISO 639 2T code and the ISO 639-1 code. The third column may be empty.

$ isoquery --iso=639
aar     aar     aa      Afar
abk     abk     ab      Abkhazian
ace     ace             Achinese
[...]
zun     zun             Zuni
zxx     zxx             No linguistic content; Not applicable
zza     zza             Zaza; Dimili; Dimli; Kirdki; Kirmanjki; Zazaki

You can trim down the results by specifying only some codes. Moreover, the option to get translated names is also available.

$ isoquery --iso=639 --locale=pt vi bo kl
vie     vie     vi      Vietnamita
tib     bod     bo      tibetano
kal     kal     kl      Kalaallisut; Greenlandic

If you want to use ISO 639-3, the displayed columns are id, scope, type, part 1 code, part 2 code, and the language name. Both part 1 and part 2 may be empty.

$ isoquery -i 639-3 aal new spa guc
aal     I       L                       Afade
new     I       L               new     Newari
spa     I       L       es      spa     Spanish
guc     I       L                       Wayuu

ISO 639-5 is also available. The displayed columns are id, parents, and name. The parents column may be empty.

$ isoquery -i 639-5 aus tut
aus             Australian languages
tut             Altaic languages

You can get selected translations of currency names from the ISO 4217 standard by using the following command. The first two columns are the alpha-3 code and the numerical code assigned to the currency.

$ isoquery --iso=4217 --locale=da cad 392
CAD     124     Canadisk dollar
JPY     392     Yen

If you need to get script names, you can use the ISO 15924 table. The first two columns are the alpha-4 code and the numerical code assigned to the script.

$ isoquery --iso=15924 jpan latn 280
Jpan    413     Japanese (alias for Han + Hiragana + Katakana)
Latn    215     Latin
Visp    280     Visible Speech

By default, the XML files provided by the iso-codes package will be used.

/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_639.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_639_3.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_639_5.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_3166.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_3166_2.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_4217.xml
/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_15924.xml

Tobias Quathamer <[email protected]>