# File raggle, line 1533
      def fix_character_encoding(element)
        # get character encoding
        enc = $config['character_encoding'] || 'ISO-8859-1'

        # check and see if we have iconv support
        if $HAVE_LIB['iconv'] && $config['use_iconv']
          unless $iconv
            # $iconv hasn't been intialized; create it
            enc += '//TRANSLIT' if $config['use_iconv_translit']
            $iconv = Iconv.new(enc, 'UTF-8')
          end

          # decode element using iconv
          ret = $iconv.iconv(element.text.to_s) << $iconv.iconv(nil)
        else
          # iconv isn't installed, or it's disabled; fall back to
          # the old (oogly) encoding behavior
          ret = (REXML::Output.new('', enc) << element.text).to_s
        end

        # return result
        ret.unescape_html
      end