<-
Apache > HTTP Server > Documentation > Version 2.2 > Modules

Please note

This document refers to a legacy release (2.2) of Apache httpd. The active release (2.4) is documented here. If you have not already upgraded, please follow this link for more information.

You may follow this link to go to the current version of this document.

Apache Module mod_charset_lite

Available Languages:  en  |  ko 

Description:Specify character set translation or recoding
Status:Extension
Module Identifier:charset_lite_module
Source File:mod_charset_lite.c

Summary

mod_charset_lite allows the server to change the character set of responses before sending them to the client. In an EBCDIC environment, Apache always translates HTTP protocol content (e.g. response headers) from the code page of the Apache process locale to ISO-8859-1, but not the body of responses. In any environment, mod_charset_lite can be used to specify that response bodies should be translated. For example, if files are stored in EBCDIC, then mod_charset_lite can translate them to ISO-8859-1 before sending them to the client.

This module provides a small subset of configuration mechanisms implemented by Russian Apache and its associated mod_charset.

Topics

Directives

top

Common Problems

Invalid character set names

The character set name parameters of CharsetSourceEnc and CharsetDefault must be acceptable to the translation mechanism used by APR on the system where mod_charset_lite is deployed. These character set names are not standardized and are usually not the same as the corresponding values used in http headers. Currently, APR can only use iconv(3), so you can easily test your character set names using the iconv(1) program, as follows:

iconv -f charsetsourceenc-value -t charsetdefault-value

Mismatch between character set of content and translation rules

If the translation rules don't make sense for the content, translation can fail in various ways, including:

top

CharsetDefault Directive

Description:Charset to translate into
Syntax:CharsetDefault charset
Context:server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override:FileInfo
Status:Extension
Module:mod_charset_lite

The CharsetDefault directive specifies the charset that content in the associated container should be translated to.

The value of the charset argument must be accepted as a valid character set name by the character set support in APR. Generally, this means that it must be supported by iconv.

Example

<Directory /export/home/trawick/apacheinst/htdocs/convert>
CharsetSourceEnc UTF-16BE
CharsetDefault ISO-8859-1
</Directory>

top

CharsetOptions Directive

Description:Configures charset translation behavior
Syntax:CharsetOptions option [option] ...
Default:CharsetOptions DebugLevel=0 NoImplicitAdd
Context:server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override:FileInfo
Status:Extension
Module:mod_charset_lite

The CharsetOptions directive configures certain behaviors of mod_charset_lite. Option can be one of

DebugLevel=n
The DebugLevel keyword allows you to specify the level of debug messages generated by mod_charset_lite. By default, no messages are generated. This is equivalent to DebugLevel=0. With higher numbers, more debug messages are generated, and server performance will be degraded. The actual meanings of the numeric values are described with the definitions of the DBGLVL_ constants near the beginning of mod_charset_lite.c.
ImplicitAdd | NoImplicitAdd
The ImplicitAdd keyword specifies that mod_charset_lite should implicitly insert its filter when the configuration specifies that the character set of content should be translated. If the filter chain is explicitly configured using the AddOutputFilter directive, NoImplicitAdd should be specified so that mod_charset_lite doesn't add its filter.
TranslateAllMimeTypes | NoTranslateAllMimeTypes
Normally, mod_charset_lite will only perform translation on a small subset of possible mimetypes. When the TranslateAllMimeTypes keyword is specified for a given configuration section, translation is performed without regard for mimetype.
top

CharsetSourceEnc Directive

Description:Source charset of files
Syntax:CharsetSourceEnc charset
Context:server config, virtual host, directory, .htaccess
Override:FileInfo
Status:Extension
Module:mod_charset_lite

The CharsetSourceEnc directive specifies the source charset of files in the associated container.

The value of the charset argument must be accepted as a valid character set name by the character set support in APR. Generally, this means that it must be supported by iconv.

Example

<Directory /export/home/trawick/apacheinst/htdocs/convert>
CharsetSourceEnc UTF-16BE
CharsetDefault ISO-8859-1
</Directory>

The character set names in this example work with the iconv translation support in Solaris 8.

Available Languages:  en  |  ko 

top

Comments

Notice:
This is not a Q&A section. Comments placed here should be pointed towards suggestions on improving the documentation or server, and may be removed again by our moderators if they are either implemented or considered invalid/off-topic. Questions on how to manage the Apache HTTP Server should be directed at either our IRC channel, #httpd, on Freenode, or sent to our mailing lists.