1 files changed, 12 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/magic.py b/magic.py
index 5025842..e7336c3 100644
--- a/magic.py
+++ b/magic.py
@@ -192,7 +192,18 @@ def errorcheck_negative_one(result, func, args):
 def coerce_filename(filename):
     if filename is None:
         return None
-    return filename.encode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
+
+    # ctypes will implicitly convert unicode strings to bytes with
+    # .encode('ascii').  A more useful default here is
+    # getfilesystemencoding().  We need to leave byte-str unchanged.
+    is_unicode = (sys.version_info.major <= 2 and
+                  isinstance(filename, unicode)) or \
+                  (sys.version_info.major >= 3 and 
+                   isinstance(filename, str))
+    if is_unicode:
+        return filename.encode(sys.getfilesystemencoding())
+    else:
+        return filename
 
 magic_open = libmagic.magic_open
 magic_open.restype = magic_t