new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/encoding.py
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+#
+# 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 General Public License
+# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+
+class EncodingException(Exception): pass
+
+
+def auto_encode(s):
+	for codec in ['utf-8', 'iso8859_15']:
+		try:
+			return s.encode(codec)
+		except (UnicodeEncodeError, UnicodeDecodeError) as e:
+			print e
+			pass
+	raise EncodingException('no suitable codec found')
+
+
+def auto_decode(s):
+	for codec in ['utf-8', 'iso8859_15']:
+		try:
+			return s.decode(codec)
+		except (UnicodeEncodeError, UnicodeDecodeError) as e:
+			print e
+			pass
+	raise EncodingException('no suitable codec found')
\ No newline at end of file