diff --git a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/fixcrlf.html b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/fixcrlf.html
index 76173eb12..318a4faac 100644
--- a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/fixcrlf.html
+++ b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/fixcrlf.html
@@ -211,6 +211,11 @@ supports all attributes of <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
       </td>
     <td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
   </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">encoding</td>
+    <td valign="top">The encoding of the files</td>
+    <td align="center">No - defaults to default JVM encoding</td>
+  </tr>
 </table>
 <h3>Examples</h3>
 <pre>  &lt;fixcrlf srcdir=&quot;${src}&quot;
diff --git a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/build.xml b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/build.xml
index 66a3369b5..ab9943e7a 100644
--- a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/build.xml
+++ b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/build.xml
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
   </target>
 
   <target name="cleanup">
-    <delete dir="result" />
+
   </target>
 
   <target name="test1" depends="init">
@@ -97,4 +97,13 @@
              />
   </target>
 
+  <target name="testEncoding" depends="init">
+    <fixcrlf srcdir="input" destdir="result"
+             includes="input.crlf.utf16"
+	     javafiles="false"
+	     cr="remove"
+             encoding="UTF16"
+             />
+  </target>
+
 </project>
diff --git a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/expected/input.lf.utf16 b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/expected/input.lf.utf16
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8ffb4e46b
Binary files /dev/null and b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/expected/input.lf.utf16 differ
diff --git a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/input/input.crlf.utf16 b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/input/input.crlf.utf16
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..81ad5814e
Binary files /dev/null and b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/input/input.crlf.utf16 differ
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCRLF.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCRLF.java
index 53522c5ef..784f6e862 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCRLF.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCRLF.java
@@ -60,12 +60,18 @@ import org.apache.tools.ant.Project;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.types.EnumeratedAttribute;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.util.FileUtils;
 
-import java.io.File;
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
-import java.io.FileReader;
-import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.BufferedWriter;
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.FileInputStream;
+import java.io.FileOutputStream;
+import java.io.FileReader;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
+import java.io.Reader;
+import java.io.Writer;
 import java.util.Enumeration;
 import java.util.NoSuchElementException;
 
@@ -84,6 +90,7 @@ import java.util.NoSuchElementException;
  * <li>eol
  * <li>tab
  * <li>eof
+ * <li>encoding
  * </ul>
  * Of these arguments, only <b>sourcedir</b> is required.
  * <p>
@@ -150,6 +157,11 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
 
     private FileUtils fileUtils = FileUtils.newFileUtils();
 
+    /**
+     * Encoding to assume for the files
+     */
+    private String encoding = null;
+
     /**
      * Defaults the properties based on the system type.
      * <ul><li>Unix: eol="LF" tab="asis" eof="remove"
@@ -316,6 +328,15 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
             ctrlz = ADD;
         }
     }
+
+    /**
+     * Specifies the encoding Ant expects the files to be in -
+     * defaults to the platforms default encoding.
+     */
+    public void setEncoding(String encoding) {
+        this.encoding = encoding;
+    }
+
     /**
      * Executes the task.
      */
@@ -346,7 +367,8 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
             (eol==ASIS ? "asis" : eol==CR ? "cr" : eol==LF ? "lf" : "crlf") +
             " tab=" + (tabs==TABS ? "add" : tabs==ASIS ? "asis" : "remove") +
             " eof=" + (ctrlz==ADD ? "add" : ctrlz==ASIS ? "asis" : "remove") +
-            " tablength=" + tablength,
+            " tablength=" + tablength +
+            " encoding=" + (encoding == null ? "default" : encoding),
             Project.MSG_VERBOSE);
 
         DirectoryScanner ds = super.getDirectoryScanner(srcDir);
@@ -357,6 +379,16 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
         }
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Creates a Reader reading from a given file an taking the user
+     * defined encoding into account.
+     */
+    private Reader getReader(File f) throws IOException {
+        return (encoding == null) ? new FileReader(f)
+            : new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(f), encoding);    
+    }
+
+
     /**
      * Checks for the inequality of two files
      */
@@ -373,9 +405,9 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
         
         try {
              reader1 = new BufferedReader
-                     (new FileReader(file1), INBUFLEN);
+                     (getReader(file1), INBUFLEN);
              reader2 = new BufferedReader
-                     (new FileReader(file2), INBUFLEN);
+                     (getReader(file2), INBUFLEN);
              while ((buflen = reader1.read(buf1, 0, INBUFLEN)) != -1 ) {
                  reader2.read(buf2, 0, INBUFLEN);
                  // Compare the contents of the buffers
@@ -414,7 +446,8 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
             // Set up the output Writer
             try {
                 tmpFile = fileUtils.createTempFile("fixcrlf", "", destD);
-                FileWriter writer = new FileWriter(tmpFile);
+                Writer writer = (encoding == null) ? new FileWriter(tmpFile)
+                    : new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(tmpFile), encoding);    
                 outWriter = new BufferedWriter(writer);
             } catch (IOException e) {
                 throw new BuildException(e);
@@ -820,7 +853,7 @@ public class FixCRLF extends MatchingTask {
         {
             try {
                 reader = new BufferedReader
-                        (new FileReader(srcFile), INBUFLEN);
+                        (getReader(srcFile), INBUFLEN);
                 nextLine();
             } catch (IOException e) {
                 throw new BuildException(e);
diff --git a/src/testcases/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCrLfTest.java b/src/testcases/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCrLfTest.java
index 5dcc43b99..51088e371 100644
--- a/src/testcases/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCrLfTest.java
+++ b/src/testcases/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/FixCrLfTest.java
@@ -159,6 +159,12 @@ public class FixCrLfTest extends TaskdefsTest {
         assertEquals(modTime, result.lastModified());
     }
 
+    public void testEncoding() throws IOException { 
+        executeTarget("testEncoding");
+        assertEqualContent(new File("src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/expected/input.lf.utf16"),
+                           new File("src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/result/input.crlf.utf16"));
+    }
+    
     public void assertEqualContent(File expect, File result) 
         throws AssertionFailedError, IOException {
         if (!result.exists()) {