diff -r faab25d520dd -r 037942e1bc4f bl/textfileutils.c
--- a/bl/textfileutils.c	Fri Jan 27 16:18:02 2012 +0000
+++ b/bl/textfileutils.c	Mon Feb 20 10:10:48 2012 +0000
@@ -6,25 +6,28 @@
  * Read a file into memory (which should be freed with mem_free when no
  * longer required). Returns NULL on error and outputs a suitable error
  * message to stderr.
- * DOS-style line endings are handled transparently even on platforms which
- * don't normally use this format.
+ * DOS-style line endings and UTF-8 BOM are handled transparently even
+ * on platforms which don't normally use these formats.
  */
 gboolean file_get_contents_text(const char *filename,char **contents,
   size_t *length)
 {
     int i;
-    char *raw;
+    unsigned char *raw;
     size_t raw_length;
     GString *string;
     GError *error=NULL;
-    if (!g_file_get_contents(filename,&raw,&raw_length,&error))
+    if (!g_file_get_contents(filename,(char *)&raw,&raw_length,&error))
     {
 	fprintf(stderr,"%s: %s\n",filename,error->message);
 	g_error_free(error);
 	return FALSE;
     }
     string=g_string_new(NULL);
-    for(i=0;i<raw_length;i++)
+    i=0;
+    if (raw_length>=3 && raw[0]==0xEF && raw[1]==0xBB && raw[2]==0xBF)
+	i+=3;			/* Skip BOM (U+FEFF) */
+    for(;i<raw_length;i++)
 	if (raw[i]!='\r')
 	    g_string_append_c(string,raw[i]);
     g_free(raw);