diff --git a/proposal/sandbox/filterreaders/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/FileUtils.java b/proposal/sandbox/filterreaders/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/FileUtils.java
index e72540108..6d4916d37 100644
--- a/proposal/sandbox/filterreaders/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/FileUtils.java
+++ b/proposal/sandbox/filterreaders/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/FileUtils.java
@@ -64,6 +64,8 @@ import java.io.FileReader;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
 import java.io.Reader;
 
 import java.lang.reflect.Method;
@@ -157,6 +159,25 @@ public class FileUtils {
                  overwrite, preserveLastModified);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Convienence method to copy a file from a source to a
+     * destination specifying if token filtering must be used, if
+     * source files may overwrite newer destination files and the
+     * last modified time of <code>destFile</code> file should be made equal
+     * to the last modified time of <code>sourceFile</code>.
+     *
+     * @throws IOException
+     *
+     * @since 1.14, Ant 1.5
+     */
+    public void copyFile(String sourceFile, String destFile,
+                         FilterSetCollection filters, boolean overwrite,
+                         boolean preserveLastModified, String encoding)
+        throws IOException {
+        copyFile(new File(sourceFile), new File(destFile), filters,
+                 overwrite, preserveLastModified, encoding);
+    }
+
     /**
      * Convienence method to copy a file from a source to a destination.
      * No filtering is performed.
@@ -202,6 +223,26 @@ public class FileUtils {
     public void copyFile(File sourceFile, File destFile, FilterSetCollection filters,
                          boolean overwrite, boolean preserveLastModified)
         throws IOException {
+        copyFile(sourceFile, destFile, filters, overwrite,
+                 preserveLastModified, null);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Convienence method to copy a file from a source to a
+     * destination specifying if token filtering must be used, if
+     * source files may overwrite newer destination files, the last
+     * modified time of <code>destFile</code> file should be made
+     * equal to the last modified time of <code>sourceFile</code> and
+     * which character encoding to assume.
+     *
+     * @throws IOException
+     *
+     * @since 1.14, Ant 1.5
+     */
+    public void copyFile(File sourceFile, File destFile,
+                         FilterSetCollection filters, boolean overwrite,
+                         boolean preserveLastModified, String encoding)
+        throws IOException {
 
         if (overwrite || !destFile.exists() ||
             destFile.lastModified() < sourceFile.lastModified()) {
@@ -218,8 +259,16 @@ public class FileUtils {
             }
 
             if (filters != null && filters.hasFilters()) {
-                BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(sourceFile));
-                BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(destFile));
+                BufferedReader in = null;
+                BufferedWriter out = null;
+
+                if (encoding == null) {
+                    in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(sourceFile));
+                    out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(destFile));
+                } else {
+                    in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(sourceFile), encoding));
+                    out = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(destFile), encoding));
+                }
 
                 int length;
                 String newline = null;