Bulk convert cp1252 to utf-8 in Windows - utf-8

Question

So,
I've been trying to convert a large java source tree from cp1252 to UTF-8 in Windows, using tips and trix I've found online, specificly here. Problem is, I'm on Windows; I don't do VB; Cygwin's iconv doesn't take the -o switch.
The line I first tried to use is:
find . -type f -print -exec iconv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 {} > {}.converted \; -exec mv {}.converted {} \;
This creates a file {}.converted in the working directory and the second -exec fails for obvious reasons.
Putting quotes around the iconv expression:
find . -type f -print -exec 'iconv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 {} > {}.converted' \; -exec mv {}.converted {} \;
resulsts in the folowing error:
find: `iconv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 ./java/dv/framework/activity/model/ActivitiesMediaViewImpl.java > ./java/dv/framework/activity/model/ActivitiesMediaViewImpl.java.converted': No such file or directory
though executing the individual expressions by hand works perfectly.
I've experimented with random quoting but nothing seems to work, what am I missing? Why won't it work..?
Thanx in advance,
Lars

Answer 1

for f in `find . -type f`; do
iconv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 $f > $f.converted
mv $f.converted $f
done

Answer 2

Allright, once again answering my own question (this is starting to become a bad habit...)
Allthough there is nothing wrong with Neevek's solution, the perfectionist in me wants to get the find -exec expression right. Wrapping the iconv statement in a sh -c '...' does the trick:
find . -type f -print -exec sh -c 'iconv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 {} > {}.converted' \; -exec mv {}.converted {} \;
Still, the underlying question of why there is a problem using i/o redirection in find -exec statements remains unresolved...

Answer 3

I haven't used Cygwin very much but there's a "native" windows version of Iconv that I use all the time. Here's an excerpt from a batch file that i use to convert all the files in a sub-dir from HP-ROMAN8 encoding to UTF-8 encoding -- putting the result './temp" under the originals:
#set dir=original
#set ICONV="C:\Program Files (x86)\iconv-1.9.2.win32\bin\iconv"
if EXIST .\%dir%\temp (
erase .\%dir%\temp*.* /Q
#if ERRORLEVEL 1 (#echo Unable to erase all files from the "temp" sub-directory
#goto THE_END
)
) else (
mkdir .\%dir%\temp
#if ERRORLEVEL 1 (#echo Unable to create the "temp" sub-directory
#goto THE_END
)
)
for %%f IN (./%dir%/*.xml) do (
%ICONV% -f HP-ROMAN8 -t UTF-8 "./%dir%/%%f" > "./%dir%/temp/%%f"
if ERRORLEVEL 1 (goto ICONV_ERROR)
)

Answer 4

The error in the first try is that the redirection operator '>' ist evaluated by the shell before find starts.
The error in the second try is that the text between the single quotes is interpreted as the name of a command that is to be executed by find, but that doesn't exist.
In your working solution the first command to be executed by find is a subshell, and the options are enclosed in single quotes, so they are not interpreted by the outer shell but by the subshell.