diff --git a/extra/io/encodings/detect/authors.txt b/extra/io/encodings/detect/authors.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6a1b3e726a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/io/encodings/detect/authors.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Joe Groff
diff --git a/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect-tests.factor b/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect-tests.factor
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..570f84d1b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect-tests.factor
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+! (c)2010 Joe Groff bsd license
+USING: byte-arrays.hex io.encodings.8-bit.koi8-r io.encodings.detect tools.test ;
+IN: io.encodings.detect.tests
+
+! UTF encodings with BOMs
+[ utf16be ] [ HEX{ FEFF 0031 0032 0033 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ utf16le ] [ HEX{ FFFE 3100 3200 3300 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ utf32be ] [ HEX{ 0000FEFF 00000031 00000032 00000033 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ utf32le ] [ HEX{ FFFE0000 31000000 32000000 33000000 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ utf8 ] [ HEX{ EF BB BF 31 32 33 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+
+! XML prolog
+[ utf8 ]
+[ """<?xml version="1.0"?>""" >byte-array detect-byte-array ]
+unit-test
+
+[ utf8 ]
+[ """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>""" >byte-array detect-byte-array ]
+unit-test
+
+[ latin1 ]
+[ """<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>""" >byte-array detect-byte-array ]
+unit-test
+
+[ latin1 ]
+[ """<?xml version='1.0' encoding="ISO-8859-1" """ >byte-array detect-byte-array ]
+unit-test
+
+! Default to utf8 if decoding succeeds and there are no nulls
+[ utf8 ] [ HEX{ 31 32 33 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ utf8 ] [ HEX{ 31 32 C2 A0 33 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ latin1 ] [ HEX{ 31 32 A0 33 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ koi8-r ] [
+    koi8-r default-8bit-encoding [
+        HEX{ 31 32 A0 33 } detect-byte-array
+    ] with-variable
+] unit-test
+
+[ binary ] [ HEX{ 31 32 33 C2 A0 00 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
+[ binary ] [ HEX{ 31 32 33 C2 A0 00 30 } detect-byte-array ] unit-test
diff --git a/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect.factor b/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect.factor
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a803c54c53
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/io/encodings/detect/detect.factor
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+! (c)2010 Joe Groff bsd license
+USING: accessors byte-arrays byte-arrays.hex combinators
+continuations fry io io.encodings io.encodings.8-bit.latin1
+io.encodings.ascii io.encodings.binary io.encodings.iana
+io.encodings.string io.encodings.utf16 io.encodings.utf32
+io.encodings.utf8 io.files io.streams.string kernel literals
+math namespaces sequences strings ;
+IN: io.encodings.detect
+
+SYMBOL: default-8bit-encoding
+default-8bit-encoding [ latin1 ] initialize
+
+<PRIVATE
+
+: prolog-tag ( bytes -- string )
+    CHAR: > over index [ 1 + ] [ dup length ] if* head-slice >string ;
+
+: prolog-encoding ( string -- iana-encoding )
+    '[
+        _ "encoding=" over start
+        10 + swap [ [ 1 - ] dip nth ] [ index-from ] [ swapd subseq ] 2tri
+    ] [ drop "UTF-8" ] recover ;
+
+: detect-xml-prolog ( bytes -- encoding )
+    prolog-tag prolog-encoding name>encoding [ ascii ] unless* ;
+
+: valid-utf8? ( bytes -- ? )
+    utf8 decode 1 head-slice* replacement-char swap member? not ;
+
+PRIVATE>
+
+: detect-byte-array ( bytes -- encoding )
+    {
+        { [ dup HEX{ 0000FEFF } head? ] [ drop utf32be ] }
+        { [ dup HEX{ FFFE0000 } head? ] [ drop utf32le ] }
+        { [ dup HEX{ FEFF } head? ] [ drop utf16be ] }
+        { [ dup HEX{ FFFE } head? ] [ drop utf16le ] }
+        { [ dup HEX{ EF BB BF } head? ] [ drop utf8 ] }
+        { [ dup $[ "<?xml" >byte-array ] head? ] [ detect-xml-prolog ] }
+        { [ 0 over member? ] [ drop binary ] }
+        { [ dup valid-utf8? ] [ drop utf8 ] }
+        [ drop default-8bit-encoding get ]
+    } cond ;
+
+: detect-stream ( stream -- sample encoding )
+    256 swap stream-read dup detect-byte-array ;
+
+: detect-file ( file -- encoding )
+    binary [ input-stream get detect-stream nip ] with-file-reader ;
diff --git a/extra/io/encodings/detect/summary.txt b/extra/io/encodings/detect/summary.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..23ab1cd153
--- /dev/null
+++ b/extra/io/encodings/detect/summary.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Heuristic auto-detection of text encodings and binary files