Should empty exist file use local encoding system?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

FKtPp writes:

 > IMO it should use a user defined encoding system or inherent the
 > current environment locale encoding system to do that.

Maybe in general, but definitely not in a mail program.  For example,
in Japan the standard mail encodings are ISO-2022-JP and UTF-8, but
most OSes (except Linux) have the locale ja_JP.eucJP or (implicitly)
ja_JP.shift_jis.  The mail program should be dealing with this
explicitly.  Fix your mail program.