How to convert to ASCII format under OpenWrt?

Question

https://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=eNk7b4fj
Dear Community!

under Fedora 14 - Bash:
$ cat asdf | iconv -c -t ASCII
<a href="http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10607">biometric cabinet lock detects life in the finger</a>
ASDF
$

under OpenWrt 10.03 - Ash:
root@router01:~# cat asdf
<a href="http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10607">biometric cabinet lock detects �life in the finger�</a>
ASDF
root@router01:~# cat asdf | iconv -c -t ASCII
-ash: iconv: not found
root@router01:~#

But theres no iconv under OpenWrt.

Are there other working methods to convert a piped ( "|" ) text to only ascii format (under OpenWrt 10.03)?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Well. you can use cat -v to output it as escaped character. if there are only a few of those character you need to convert, you can use sed to substitute it out

http://linux.byexamples.com/archives/108/beware-of-non-ascii-characters/

Alternatively, use tr

http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/linux-unix/how-remove-non-printable-ascii-characters-file-unix