This switch allows to control packaging of gconv libraries.
What are gconv libraries?
The standard "libc" library includes the iconv function. This function is used to convert one character set into another. Glibc implemented the iconv function by means of shared objects, each of them providing functions to convert to and from a specific sharacter set.
More information about iconv can be found at: The iconv Implementation in the GNU C library
There are a small number or trivial encodings contained directly in glibc, but most of them are implemented as shared objects. So if an application uses the iconv function then it is likely that it will load gconv libraries as well. Those libraries are tighly coupled with glibc, so mixing different versions of the glibc and gconv libraries is likely to make your application unhappy.
Specifing --with-gconv='internal'
will ensure that the packaged application uses
matching versions of glibc and gconv libraries.
Examples of applications using the iconv function:
- iconv
- bash
- tcsh