diff --git a/pyfpdb/Charset.py b/pyfpdb/Charset.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2c6f78c3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyfpdb/Charset.py
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+#Copyright 2010 Mika Bostrom
+#This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+#it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
+#the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.
+#
+#This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+#but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+#MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+#GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+#You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+#along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+#In the "official" distribution you can find the license in
+#agpl-3.0.txt in the docs folder of the package.
+
+# String manipulation
+import codecs
+
+# Settings
+import Configuration
+
+encoder_to_utf = codecs.lookup('utf-8')
+encoder_to_sys = codecs.lookup(Configuration.LOCALE_ENCODING)
+
+def to_utf8(s):
+    (_out, _len) = encoder_to_utf.encode(s)
+    return _out
+
+def to_gui(s):
+    (_out, _len) = encoder_to_sys.encode(s)
+    return _out
+