Index: Python/import.c
===================================================================
--- Python/import.c	(revision 65833)
+++ Python/import.c	(working copy)
@@ -2758,6 +2758,30 @@
 */
 
 static PyObject *
+imp_get_codingspec(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
+{
+	char *fname, *encoding = NULL;
+	int fd;
+	PyObject *r;
+	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s:get_codingspec", &fname))
+		return NULL;
+	fd = open(fname, O_RDONLY);
+	if (fd == -1)
+		return PyErr_SetFromErrno(PyExc_IOError);
+	/* PyTokenizer_FindEncoding() returns PyMem_MALLOC'ed memory. */
+	encoding = PyTokenizer_FindEncoding(fd);
+	close(fd);
+	if (encoding == NULL && PyErr_Occurred())
+		return NULL;
+	r = PyUnicode_FromString((encoding != NULL) ? encoding :
+				 PyUnicode_GetDefaultEncoding());
+	if (encoding != NULL)
+		PyMem_FREE(encoding);
+	return r;
+}
+
+
+static PyObject *
 imp_get_magic(PyObject *self, PyObject *noargs)
 {
 	char buf[4];
@@ -2826,6 +2850,10 @@
 			/* PyTokenizer_FindEncoding() returns PyMem_MALLOC'ed
 			   memory. */
 			found_encoding = PyTokenizer_FindEncoding(fd);
+			if (found_encoding == NULL && PyErr_Occurred()) {
+				close(fd);
+				return NULL;
+			}
 			lseek(fd, 0, 0); /* Reset position */
 			encoding = (found_encoding != NULL) ? found_encoding :
 				   (char*)PyUnicode_GetDefaultEncoding();
@@ -3100,6 +3128,12 @@
 Load a module, given information returned by find_module().\n\
 The module name must include the full package name, if any.");
 
+PyDoc_STRVAR(doc_get_codingspec,
+"get_codingspec(path) -> string\n\
+Return the normalized coding spec of a Python file as returned by the \n\
+tokenizer. When no coding spec is set, the default encoding is returned \n\
+instead.");
+
 PyDoc_STRVAR(doc_get_magic,
 "get_magic() -> string\n\
 Return the magic number for .pyc or .pyo files.");
@@ -3133,6 +3167,7 @@
 
 static PyMethodDef imp_methods[] = {
 	{"find_module",	 imp_find_module,  METH_VARARGS, doc_find_module},
+	{"get_codingspec", imp_get_codingspec, METH_VARARGS, doc_get_codingspec},
 	{"get_magic",	 imp_get_magic,	   METH_NOARGS,  doc_get_magic},
 	{"get_suffixes", imp_get_suffixes, METH_NOARGS,  doc_get_suffixes},
 	{"load_module",	 imp_load_module,  METH_VARARGS, doc_load_module},
Index: Doc/library/imp.rst
===================================================================
--- Doc/library/imp.rst	(revision 65833)
+++ Doc/library/imp.rst	(working copy)
@@ -32,6 +32,13 @@
    below.
 
 
+.. function:: get_codingspec(path)
+
+   Return the normalized source file encoding for *path*. If no explicit
+   encoding is specified in the source file, the default encoding for source is
+   returned.
+
+
 .. function:: find_module(name[, path])
 
    Try to find the module *name* on the search path *path*.  If *path* is a list
Index: Lib/test/test_imp.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/test/test_imp.py	(revision 65833)
+++ Lib/test/test_imp.py	(working copy)
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
+# DO NOT specify an encoding for this file!
 import imp
+import os.path
 import unittest
+import test
 from test import support
+import sys
 
 
 class LockTests(unittest.TestCase):
@@ -67,7 +71,17 @@
         ## import sys
         ## self.assertRaises(ImportError, reload, sys)
 
+    def test_get_encoding(self):
+        self.assertEqual(imp.get_codingspec(__file__), "utf-8")
+        import pydoc
+        self.assertEqual(imp.get_codingspec(pydoc.__file__), "iso-8859-1")
+        self.assertRaises(SyntaxError, imp.get_codingspec, sys.executable)
+        test_directory = os.path.split(test.__file__)[0]
+        bad_encoding_path = os.path.join(test_directory,
+                                         'bad_source_encoding.py')
+        self.assertRaises(SyntaxError, imp.get_codingspec, bad_encoding_path)
 
+
 def test_main():
     support.run_unittest(
                 LockTests,
Index: Lib/test/bad_source_encoding.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/test/bad_source_encoding.py	(revision 0)
+++ Lib/test/bad_source_encoding.py	(revision 0)
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+# coding: nonsense
+u = "helper for testing non-existent encodings"