diff -ur jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-orig/src/components/org/apache/jmeter/assertions/ResponseAssertion.java jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-src/src/components/org/apache/jmeter/assertions/ResponseAssertion.java
--- jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-orig/src/components/org/apache/jmeter/assertions/ResponseAssertion.java	2004-06-11 13:04:46.000000000 +0200
+++ jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-src/src/components/org/apache/jmeter/assertions/ResponseAssertion.java	2005-10-18 11:25:34.000000000 +0200
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 
 package org.apache.jmeter.assertions;
 import java.io.Serializable;
+import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 
 import org.apache.jmeter.samplers.SampleResult;
@@ -34,6 +35,8 @@
 import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Pattern;
 import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Perl5Compiler;
 import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Perl5Matcher;
+import org.apache.jorphan.logging.LoggingManager;
+import org.apache.log.Logger; 
 
 /**
  *
@@ -43,6 +46,8 @@
    extends AbstractTestElement
    implements Serializable, Assertion
 {
+   transient private static Logger log = LoggingManager.getLoggerForClass();
+ 
    public final static String TEST_FIELD = "Assertion.test_field";
    // Values for TEST_FIELD
    public final static String SAMPLE_LABEL = "Assertion.sample_label";
@@ -263,7 +268,29 @@
       // What are we testing against?
       if (ResponseAssertion.RESPONSE_DATA.equals(getTestField()))
       {
-		toCheck = new StringBuffer(response.getResponseHeaders()).append(new String(response.responseDataAsBA())).toString();
+           String responseData = null;
+	   if ( response.getContentType()!=null 
+			   && response.getContentType().startsWith("text/") ){
+		   if ( log.isDebugEnabled()){
+			   log.debug("attempting to use charset '"+response.getDataEncoding()+"' for contentType '"+response.getContentType()+"' of "+response.getURL());
+		   }
+		   try{
+		      // use supplied encoding from ContentType
+		      responseData = new String(response.responseDataAsBA(),response.getDataEncoding());
+		   }catch(UnsupportedEncodingException ex){
+			   if ( log.isErrorEnabled){
+				   log.error("Error "+ex.getMessage()+" while converting charset '"+response.getDataEncoding()+"' for contentType '"+response.getContentType()+"' of "+response.getURL()+". Falling back to system encoding.");
+			   }
+		   }
+	   }
+
+	   
+	   if (responseData == null) {
+		   // fallback to old behaviour
+		   responseData = new String(response.responseDataAsBA());
+	   }
+
+		toCheck = new StringBuffer(response.getResponseHeaders()).append(responseData).toString();
       }
       else if (ResponseAssertion.RESPONSE_CODE.equals(getTestField()))
       {
Only in jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-src/src/core/org/apache/jmeter/util: catalog
diff -ur jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-orig/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampler.java jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-src/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampler.java
--- jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-orig/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampler.java	2004-10-03 16:23:30.000000000 +0200
+++ jakarta-jmeter-2.0.3-src/src/protocol/http/org/apache/jmeter/protocol/http/sampler/HTTPSampler.java	2005-10-18 11:31:12.000000000 +0200
@@ -675,6 +675,9 @@
         totalRes.setResponseMessage(lastRes.getResponseMessage());
         totalRes.setDataType(lastRes.getDataType());
         totalRes.setResponseHeaders(lastRes.getResponseHeaders());
+        totalRes.setContentType(lastRes.getContentType());
+        totalRes.setDataEncoding(lastRes.getDataEncoding());
+
         return totalRes;
     }