diff -r 46151cd23815 -r 9d566568d37c include/relpipe/common/text/TextCodec.h
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/include/relpipe/common/text/TextCodec.h	Wed Nov 20 14:56:41 2019 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+/**
+ * Relational pipes (library)
+ * Copyright © 2019 František Kučera (Frantovo.cz, GlobalCode.info)
+ *
+ * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ * it under the terms of the:
+ *  - GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
+ *    version 3 of the License or (at your option)
+ *  - GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
+ *    version 2 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 General Public License
+ * along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+ */
+#pragma once
+
+#include <memory>
+
+#include "Iconv.h"
+
+namespace relpipe {
+namespace common {
+namespace text {
+
+/**
+ * TextCodec converts text from an encoding (usually the plarform default) 
+ * to our internal string representations (which is octet string consisting of UTF-8 encoded text).
+ * 
+ * bytes = platform encoding
+ * text = our encoding
+ * 
+ * n.b. if the default (platform) encoding "" is used, it is required to initialize locales: setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
+ */
+class TextCodec {
+private:
+	class TextCodecInternal;
+	TextCodecInternal* internal;
+public:
+	TextCodec();
+	TextCodec(const std::string& encoding);
+	virtual ~TextCodec();
+	std::string fromBytes(std::string bytes);
+	std::string toBytes(std::string text);
+};
+
+}
+}
+}