[MERGE][Bug #116143] commit raises UnicodeError (traceback) if LANG is incorrect

[Robert Collins]

Robert Collins has voted +1 (conditional).
Status is now: Semi-approved
Comment:
I would **really** rather see some tests. You can use 'make check' to 
run them in the C locale where unicode is disabled. If this is too hard, 
as the changes are fairly simple and we do have test coverage for the 
success case, I'm ok with allowing it in.

For details, see: 
http://bundlebuggy.aaronbentley.com/request/%3C469E8796.9090006%40warwick.ac.uk%3E