|  |  | GLib Reference Manual |

## GLib Utilities

String Utility Functions — various string-related functions.
Character Set Conversion — convert strings between different character sets using ``iconv()``.
Unicode Manipulation — functions operating on Unicode characters and UTF-8 strings.
Base64 Encoding — encodes and decodes data in Base64 format
Internationalization — gettext support macros.
Date and Time Functions — calendrical calculations and miscellaneous time stuff.
Random Numbers — pseudo-random number generator.
Hook Functions — support for manipulating lists of hook functions.
Miscellaneous Utility Functions — a selection of portable utility functions.
Lexical Scanner — a general purpose lexical scanner.
Automatic String Completion — support for automatic completion using a group of target strings.
Timers — keep track of elapsed time.
Spawning Processes — process launching with ``fork()``/``exec()``.
File Utilities — various file-related functions.
Shell-related Utilities — shell-like commandline handling.
Commandline option parser — parses commandline options
Glob-style pattern matching — matches strings against patterns containing '*' (wildcard) and '?' (joker).
Simple XML Subset Parser — parses a subset of XML.
Key-value file parser — parses `.ini`-like config files
Bookmark file parser — parses files containing bookmarks
Windows Compatibility Functions — UNIX emulation on Windows.