# Install uchardet with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, pacman, winget, zypper Encoding detector library. Version 0.0.8 via Homebrew; verified from local package data. ## Install ```sh sudo av install brew:uchardet ``` Additional install commands: ### macOS - Homebrew (100%): ```sh brew install uchardet ``` Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata - MacPorts (94%): ```sh sudo port install uchardet ``` Evidence: MacPorts ports tree: textproc/uchardet/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1 ### Linux - apk (92%): ```sh sudo apk add uchardet ``` Evidence: Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz - Debian apt (92%): ```sh sudo apt install libuchardet-dev ``` Evidence: Debian stable package indexes: libuchardet-dev from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz - dnf (92%): ```sh sudo dnf install uchardet ``` Evidence: Fedora Rawhide package metadata: uchardet from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/e5ca8ce900cd68f5419e1c39ae517343100b306336cbaeb70a3c153121d95094-primary.xml.zst - pacman (92%): ```sh sudo pacman -S uchardet ``` Evidence: Arch Linux sync databases: uchardet from https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64/extra.db.tar.gz - zypper (92%): ```sh sudo zypper install libuchardet-devel ``` Evidence: openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: libuchardet-devel from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/be8d3611d25469107f32075a1697e69ec57a2b850b42348a658cc671ad5ec2b50760d02c3e59524d50da9a11d5be799bdaffba2e166e8ca8858512e3c0bd665d-primary.xml.zst ### Windows - winget (92%): ```sh winget install --id PolarGoose.uchardet -e ``` Evidence: Windows Package Manager source index: PolarGoose.uchardet from https://cdn.winget.microsoft.com/cache/source.msix ## Package facts - **Package key:** brew:uchardet - **Package manager:** Homebrew - **Package manager page:** - **Version:** 0.0.8 - **Source summary:** Encoding detector library - **Homepage:** - **Repository:** - **Upstream docs:** - **License:** MPL-1.1 OR GPL-2.0-or-later OR LGPL-2.1-or-later - **Source archive:** - **Generated:** 2026-07-08T07:18:31+00:00 ## Executables - uchardet (cli) - uchardet (alias) ## Build dependencies - cmake ## Install behavior - Post-install hook: not defined - Bottle: available on arm64_big_sur, arm64_linux, arm64_monterey, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, arm64_ventura, big_sur, monterey, sonoma, ventura, x86_64_linux ## Freshness - Page generated: 2026-07-08 - Package-manager version: 0.0.8 - Local data: ok - Upstream repository: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - info: No package-manager update timestamp was available. - info: Release/tag comparison is only available for GitHub repositories. ## Project history and usage uchardet is a character encoding detector library and CLI derived from Mozilla's universal charset detector work. It takes unknown bytes and attempts to identify the text encoding, returning iconv-compatible names, which makes it useful in editors, import pipelines, file tools, and packaging workflows that handle legacy text. ### Project history The freedesktop.org project page says uchardet started as a C language binding of Mozilla's original C++ universal charset detection library. The current README broadens that description to an encoding and language detector that now detects more charsets and more reliably than the original implementation while remaining reasonably fast. The project moved from BYVoid's earlier GitHub repository to freedesktop hosting. The old repository now tells users that uchardet is a freedesktop project and points to the freedesktop page, bug tracker, releases, and code location. freedesktop.org lists uchardet 0.0.8 as the last release on 2022-12-08, with earlier release tarballs for 0.0.6 in 2016 and 0.0.7 in 2020. The current project page links GitLab issues for bugs and patches and the GitLab repository for development code. ### Adoption history uchardet is adopted wherever package users need an embeddable encoding detector rather than a full application. The batch input shows packages for Homebrew, Alpine, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, MacPorts, winget, and openSUSE-style systems, often split as library/development packages on Linux. Its niche persists because encoding detection remains a practical problem for command-line text processing and data import. A small C/C++ library with iconv-compatible output is easy for downstream language bindings, desktop tools, and scripts to depend on. ### How it is used As a library, uchardet is used by passing bytes with no extra encoding information and receiving a likely encoding name, plus language detection in the current README. As a package, the uchardet executable gives shell users a direct way to inspect files before conversion or ingestion. The supported-encodings list on freedesktop.org covers Unicode encodings plus many regional legacy encodings for Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, Central European, Western European, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, and other text families. ### Why package nerds care uchardet is package-nerd significant because it is infrastructure: it rarely sits at the center of a user's workflow, but it helps many tools make better guesses about old or mislabeled text. Its history also shows a common open-source maintenance path: a useful standalone project migrates from a personal GitHub repository to freedesktop infrastructure, gains release tarballs and issue tracking there, and remains widely packaged as both a command and a development library. ### Timeline - 2015: The old BYVoid GitHub repository lists version 0.0.5 as its latest release before the freedesktop move. - 2016: freedesktop.org publishes uchardet 0.0.6 release tarballs. - 2020: freedesktop.org publishes uchardet 0.0.7 release tarballs. - 2022: freedesktop.org publishes uchardet 0.0.8 and lists it as the last release. ### Related projects - Mozilla's universal charset detector is the direct upstream lineage named by the project. - iconv/libiconv is the compatibility target for returned encoding names. - Language bindings and downstream packages use uchardet as a small encoding-detection dependency. ### Sources - - - - - source_facts.package-manager identifies broad package-manager availability. ## Security Notes library-like package without higher-risk signals. - **Geiger risk:** green / low - library-like package without higher-risk signals ## Source Database Details - **Source Database:** Homebrew formula API - **Tap:** homebrew/core - **Full Name:** uchardet - **Version Scheme:** 0 - **Revision:** 0 - **Head Version:** HEAD - **Bottle Stable Root URL:** - **Deprecated:** no - **Disabled:** no - **Keg Only:** no - **URL Keys:** head, stable ## Other Package-Manager Records - Debian apt - libuchardet-dev - 0.0.8-1+b2: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libuchardet-dev from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | universal charset detection library - development files | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - Debian apt - libuchardet0 - 0.0.8-1+b2: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libuchardet0 from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | universal charset detection library - shared library | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - Debian apt - uchardet - 0.0.8-1+b2: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: uchardet from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | universal charset detection library - cli utility | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - Ubuntu apt - libuchardet-dev - 0.0.8-1build1: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libuchardet-dev from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | universal charset detection library - development files | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - Ubuntu apt - libuchardet0 - 0.0.8-1build1: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libuchardet0 from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | universal charset detection library - shared library | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - Ubuntu apt - uchardet - 0.0.8-1build1: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: uchardet from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | universal charset detection library - cli utility | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - apk - uchardet - 0.0.8-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - apk - uchardet-dev - 0.0.8-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet-dev from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla (development files) | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - apk - uchardet-doc - 0.0.8-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet-doc from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla (documentation) | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - apk - uchardet-libs - 0.0.8-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet-libs from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla (libraries) | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - apk - uchardet-static - 0.0.8-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: uchardet-static from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla (static library) | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - dnf - uchardet - 0.0.8-10.fc44: normalized package name match | Fedora Rawhide package metadata: uchardet from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/e5ca8ce900cd68f5419e1c39ae517343100b306336cbaeb70a3c153121d95094-primary.xml.zst | An encoding detector library ported from Mozilla | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - dnf - uchardet-devel - 0.0.8-10.fc44: normalized package name match | Fedora Rawhide package metadata: uchardet-devel from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/e5ca8ce900cd68f5419e1c39ae517343100b306336cbaeb70a3c153121d95094-primary.xml.zst | Development files for uchardet | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - pacman - uchardet - 0.0.8-4: normalized package name match | Arch Linux sync databases: uchardet from https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64/extra.db.tar.gz | Encoding detector library ported from Mozilla | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet - zypper - libuchardet-devel - 0.0.8-2.3: normalized package name match | openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: libuchardet-devel from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/be8d3611d25469107f32075a1697e69ec57a2b850b42348a658cc671ad5ec2b50760d02c3e59524d50da9a11d5be799bdaffba2e166e8ca8858512e3c0bd665d-primary.xml.zst | Universal Charset Detection Library | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ - zypper - libuchardet0 - 0.0.8-2.3: normalized package name match | openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: libuchardet0 from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/be8d3611d25469107f32075a1697e69ec57a2b850b42348a658cc671ad5ec2b50760d02c3e59524d50da9a11d5be799bdaffba2e166e8ca8858512e3c0bd665d-primary.xml.zst | Universal Charset Detection Library | https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/uchardet/ ## Related links - [Terminal utility packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/terminal-utilities/) - Matched terminal and command-line workflow metadata. - [Text processing packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/text-processing-tools/) - Matched text, document, or structured-data processing metadata. - [Developer build packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/developer-build-tools/) - Matched build, compiler, generator, or developer workflow metadata. - [Networking and protocol packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/networking-protocol-tools/) - Matched network, protocol, or remote-service metadata. - [cmake](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/cmake/) - Build dependency declared by Homebrew. - [cherrytree](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/cherrytree/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [far2l-tty](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/far2l-tty/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [groff](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/groff/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mpv](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mpv/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [rpl](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/rpl/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [gspell](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/gspell/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, library, text. - [libiconv](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/libiconv/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, library, text. - [recode](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/recode/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: charset, cli, developer-tools, encoding, text-processing. - [aklomp-base64](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/aklomp-base64/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, encoding. - [bsdconv](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/bsdconv/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, library, text-processing. - [der-ascii](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/der-ascii/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, encoding. - [ecoji](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/ecoji/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, developer-tools, encoding. - [enca](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/enca/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: charset, cli, developer-tools, encoding, text-processing. - [chardet](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/chardet/) - Local package facts share a topical domain. Shared terms: charset, cli, detection, detector, developer. - [libchardet](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/libchardet/) - Local package facts share a topical domain. Shared terms: charset, cli, detection, detector, developer. ## Combined YAML source View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/uchardet.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/uchardet.yml) ## Sources - Nucleus package database - Geiger risk classifier - package-page enrichment - curated package history - package version freshness - av.db category and tag curation - package relationship graph - external package-manager database matches - cross-ecosystem install command graph