--- a/SrvTxtUtils.py	Tue Feb 28 19:10:08 2012 +0100
+++ b/SrvTxtUtils.py	Tue Feb 28 19:46:37 2012 +0100
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 import logging
 
 
-srvTxtUtilsVersion = "1.3"
+srvTxtUtilsVersion = "1.4"
 
 def getInt(number, default=0):
     """returns always an int (0 in case of problems)"""
@@ -27,6 +27,28 @@
     except:
         return default
 
+def unicodify(s):
+    """decode str (utf-8 or latin-1 representation) into unicode object"""
+    if not s:
+        return u""
+    if isinstance(s, str):
+        try:
+            return s.decode('utf-8')
+        except:
+            return s.decode('latin-1')
+    else:
+        return s
+
+def utf8ify(s):
+    """encode unicode object or string into byte string in utf-8 representation.
+       assumes string objects to be utf-8"""
+    if not s:
+        return ""
+    if isinstance(s, str):
+        return s
+    else:
+        return s.encode('utf-8')
+
 def getText(node, recursive=0):
     """returns all text content of a node and its subnodes"""
     if node is None: